USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard College class of ninety-seven : fiftieth anniversary report, 1897 > Part 55
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He therefore turned to secondary schools, joining a notable school faculty as Head of the English Department at the Short- ridge High School in Indianapolis, where he served from 1901 to 1908. He then entered upon ten years of service as Head of the English Department at the Newton, Massachusetts, High School. Dr. Frank E. Spaulding called Thomas to join him after he had left the superintendency of the Newton Schools and become superintendent in Cleveland, Ohio. There, Thomas was Director of English for the entire secondary school system from 1918 to 1920. He then accepted a post on the editorial staff of the Atlantic Monthly Press and a position as Lecturer on the Teaching of English at Harvard. For the rest of his life he was a well-known and much loved figure in the educational and literary life of New England.
The work at Harvard increased in its demands, and in 1930 Dr. Thomas entered upon full-time service at the University as Associ- ate Professor of Education. He taught regularly the courses offered to beginners and to more advanced students - experienced teachers - in the Teaching of English. He was founder and for six years Editor of the Harvard Teachers Record, predecessor of the Harvard Educational Review. He was Chairman of the Com- mittee on Publications of the Graduate School of Education; Secretary-Treasurer of the Harvard Teachers Association; Secre- tary of the Alumni Association; and in many other connections he was constantly and helpfully occupied with the affairs of the School.
Dr. Thomas was an influential member of the New England Association of Teachers of English - its president, its secretary, and for many years the Editor of its journal, the English Leaflet. He remained Consulting Editor of that journal, until his death. In 1934-35 he served as President of the National Council of Teachers of English, and he was for many years a member of its
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Board of Directors. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Delta Kappa, honorary society in Education, and Beta Theta Pi, a national fraternity.
The Reverend Boynton Merrill, who was for many years his pastor in the Second Church in Newton, and the Reverend Clyde Yarbrough, now minister of that congregation, testified eloquently at the funeral service on June 29, 1943, to the reliance they placed in Mr. Thomas's wisdom and faithfulness as a church member and officer.
The personal life of Charles Swain Thomas reflected his up- bringing and the inward peace of his nature. He came of Quaker parentage, attended a country school in Indiana, graduated from Anderson Academy, one of those schools in which New England tradition was maintained in the Middle West. The fact that he entered Indiana University at the age of sixteen bespeaks his intellectual capacity. His steady progress in his chosen field of work is evidence of the continuity and concentration of interest and effort which marked his whole life. This characteristic marked also his personal relationships. On July 23, 1896, he was married to Charlotte Thornton of Bedford, Indiana, and through later years of loss and trial, he remained her constant lover and servant. Their only child, Thornton Swain, born July 12, 1899, a young man of great promise, was taken from them by death in 1921.
Dr. Thomas's chief books were The Teaching of English in the Secondary School, 1916, of which a revised edition appeared in 1927; Examining the Examination in English, (with others), 1931; Your English and Your Personality, Your Command of Oral English, Your Command of Written English, and Your Reading and Its Values, all appearing in 1940. In addition, Thomas edited many school texts, three volumes of plays and stories for the Atlantic Monthly Press.
In 1938 there was established in his honor at Harvard the Charles Swain Thomas Fund for the Teaching of English. In 1940 the Harvard Press issued a volume of essays written in tribute to him; among the contributors were Mary Ellen Chase, John Erskine, J. Edgar Park, Frances Lester Warner, Claude Fuess, Younghill Kang, and Robert M. Gay. The volume indicates
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the esteem in which Charles Swain Thomas was held by a host of admirers and indicates, too, the loss to letters and to teaching in New England occasioned by his death.
H. W. H. H. E. W.
PHILLIPS BLAGDEN THOMPSON
M Y life has been a happy one," reports Phillips Thompson. "I have been most fortunate in my family and friends, and while I have never made money, I have had contentment. I have been blessed with good health and have had comparatively little serious illness in my family. I have few intimate friends, but I know a great many people whose companionship I enjoy in one way or another. I do not mind being alone. I like to read and play golf. My business is a source of great enjoyment, and I am never at a loss to know what to do."
Thompson, the son of John Dixwell and Sally Phillips (Blag- den ) Thompson, was born May 29, 1874, at Boston. He prepared at the Cutler School in New York City. He was graduated with an A.B. in '97.
"I engaged in no activities as an undergraduate," he writes. "I tried for the Freshman Crew and stayed on the squad longer than my friend, Arthur Street, which was something.
"My first job was with Alden Sampson & Sons, manufacturers of floor oil cloths. Next I went into the brokerage business, was not successful, and in 1914, I joined my nephew, G. Macculloch Miller, and a friend of his in opening a tobacco shop under the name of MM Importing Company. This venture was successful, and while we are still tobacconists, our business has expanded in other directions. We now operate under the name of MM Com- pany, Incorporated, and we are located at 400 Park Avenue, New York, and doing well in our thirty-second year."
Thompson married Marion Lawrence Mckeever, April 12, 1898, at New York City. They had three children: Edward Samp- son, born January 30, 1899 (died January 3, 1919); Elizabeth Hare (Mrs. Roger Tuckerman), born May 15, 1902; and Phyllis
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(Mrs. Jerauld Wright), born April 28, 1906. There are five grand- children: Cynthia, Nancy, and Roger Wolcott Tuckerman, chil- dren of Elizabeth Thompson and Roger Tuckerman, '20; Marion and William Mason Wright, 3d, children of Phyllis Thompson and Rear Admiral Jerauld Wright, U.S.N. There is one great- grandchild, Phyllis Gay, daughter of Cynthia Tuckerman and John Gay, '38.
During World War I, Thompson served in the American Red Cross as assistant field director of Field No. 2, Hempstead, Long Island, and later as assistant to the director of military affairs in Rome, Italy. His wife worked in the Harvard Club Canteen and in the Clinic of the Presbyterian Hospital. In World War II, he served on the Executive Committee of the Union Jack Club in New York, and on the Central Committee which ran the Union Jack Clubs in Boston, San Francisco, Charleston, Asbury Park, and other places. Mrs. Thompson worked as a volunteer in the Roosevelt Hospital.
Thompson is the author of a pamphlet on the subject of "Treat- ing" and a small book, Simplifying the Golf Stroke. His clubs are the Harvard Club of New York City, in which he is the chairman of the House Committee; Brook Club; National Golf Links of America; Garden City Golf Club; and Southampton Club.
+ FRANK GRAHAM THOMSON
F RANK GRAHAM THOMSON, one of Harvard's foremost benefactors, died September 13, 1941, at New York City. The son of Frank and Mary Elizabeth (Clarke) Thomson, he was born January 29, 1874, at Altoona, Pennsylvania, and attended Groton. After graduating from college, he attended the Law School for two years and later received his LL.B. from the University of Pennsyl- vania in 1902. He was admitted to the Bar and for four years practised law in Philadelphia. He then moved to the West for his health and stayed for three years in New Mexico, where he became part-owner of a ranch. Returning to the East, he estab- lished a model farm at Devon, Pennsylvania, where he engaged in scientific agriculture and horticulture and bred cattle and horses.
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Thomson firmly believed that the education of youth for states- manship was one of the primary needs of successful democratic government. He gave expression to this belief in several ways. With his brother, Clarke, he established at Harvard the Bureau of Municipal Research and the Bureau of Municipal Government. He himself gave to Harvard a library of 10,000 volumes dealing with city government, which formed the nucleus of the library at Littauer Center. Others of his gifts went for scholarships in the Graduate School of Education, for the College Library, for build- ing improvements, for the aid of the Department of Government, for the Department of Music, and for a variety of other purposes. At his death, he left hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Department of Government. With his brother and sister, Miss Anne Thomson, he established the Frank Thomson Scholarships in honor of their father. These provided financial aid for sons of em- ployees of the Pennsylvania Railroad, of which their father was president.
During the first World War, he attended the Military Instruc- tion Camp at Plattsburg, New York, and in 1918 was appointed a captain in the Quartermaster Reserve Corps.
On June 16, 1919, he married Abi Caroline Sykes, who survived him.
+ TOWNSEND WILLIAM THORNDIKE
Tbrid OWNSEND WILLIAM THORNDIKE died April 5, 1929, at Cam- bridge. The son of William Henry and Sarah Wayland (Smith) Thorndike, he was born May 12, 1872, at Boston and attended Stone's School there. He attended the Medical School from 1890 to 1892 and was in the College during 1893-94. Then followed a period of travel, during which he observed and wrote much along the lines of his interest in natural history. His trips took him to the Bahamas, the Rocky Mountains, Alaska, Canada, Europe, northwest Africa, and Europe, and he made many hunt- ing expeditions in Maine. In 1898 he entered the Medical School again, taking an M.D. in 1902. He was interested chiefly in dis- eases of the skin and in a relatively few years he became chief of
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the department for the diseases of the skin at the Boston City Hospital. The clinic which developed largely through his efforts took high rank among the dermatological clinics of the country. He was professor of dermatology at Tufts Medical School, con- sultant at the Marine Hospital, United States Public Health Service, and consultant to the State Leper Colony. In 1922 he founded the Aesculapian Club to improve medical teaching and was also a founder of the Harvard Travellers' Club. He also wrote many articles and papers as well as some biographies.
Thorndike's countless loyal and devoted friends will remember him best for his honesty and sense of justice, his strength of con- viction and his enthusiasm, his condemnation and intolerance of outworn conventions. It is our loss that he was associated with the Class only during our freshman year.
He married Mary Elizabeth Cayford at Boston on January 26, 1907. She died in 1923, leaving three children - Sarah Herbert, born August 22, 1910; William, born July 24, 1912; and Charles born February 1, 1914. His second wife, Margery Smith, and their son, David, survived him.
+ WILLIS PAGE TILTON
W ILLIS PAGE TILTON died on September 21, 1942, at Somerville, Massachusetts. He was born at Boston on September 6, 1873, the son of Stephen Willis and Frances Emily Tilton. After attending the Roxbury and English High Schools, he entered the Lawrence Scientific School in 1893. He transferred to the Col- lege three years later and received an A.B. in 1898 as of our Class. He married Grace Miriam Day Emerson on October 18, 1919, at Ashmont, Massachusetts. She survived him.
Willis Tilton was a shy, lovable character, who delighted in systematic study and research, especially in all that pertained to New England history and genealogy. His fund of information along these lines was extensive, and he delighted to browse around our old New England towns and graveyards, and dig up rare and entertaining bits of information. He also enjoyed those branches of business which required accuracy and careful system-
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atization and detail. He did not make an impression on strangers, and shrank from the hard conflicts of aggressive business life.
It was his misfortune to be thrown, just out of college, into a · business career for which he was least fitted and in which least likely to succeed, and it was a great satisfaction to one of his classmates to find for him in 1917 a position at The Riverside Press where his methodical nature and skill at detail rapidly won for him the confidence and respect of the leaders of the business. Men who had been critical of his appointment soon grew to trust his sound and careful judgments and enjoy his whimsical good humor under trying circumstances.
At The Riverside Press he remained for the last twenty-five years of his life, enjoying his work and his association with his fellow-workers. He built a purely routine job into a position where more and more important decisions were left to him, and he made few mistakes.
Successful work brought its returns, and he was able to marry, acquire his home in Belmont, and enjoy the modest luxuries of life. All of his business associates were also his friends, and en- joyed and appreciated his lovable qualities and his sterling hon- esty and integrity.
J. D. P.
+ JAMES AUSTIN TIRRELL
AMES AUSTIN TIRRELL died January 11, 1930, at Forest Hills, J Massachusetts. The son of Austin and Mary Simmons ( Cush- ing) Tirrell, he was born November 25, 1873, at Rockland, Massachusetts, where he attended high school. He was in college from 1893 to 1896, leaving to enter the Law School, where he studied for three years. He took an A.B. in 1897 and an LL.B. in 1899. He then entered the practice of law in Boston and was so engaged until his death. After the war he went into politics and, with Louis K. Liggett, founded the Republican League of Massa- chusetts, of which he became vice-president. He lent his great ability in his profession and his prowess on the speaking plat- form to the famous "law and order" campaign which helped to
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make Calvin Coolidge governor and also campaigned widely for Governor Channing H. Cox.
He was survived by his wife, the former Alice Hastings Torrey, whom he married at Rockland on June 25, 1902, and their daugh- ter, Barbara, born July 4, 1904.
+ FRANK HALE TOURET
FRANK HALE TOURET was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on March 25, 1875, the son of Benjamin Augustus and Lucy Hatch (Marks) Touret. He died in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Aug- ust 2, 1945. He prepared for college at the Salem High School. After two years in business following his graduation from Har- vard, he studied a year in the Harvard Divinity School, receiving his A.M. in 1901, and then transferred to the Episcopal Theologi- cal School in Cambridge, from which he was graduated in 1903 with the degree of Bachelor of Divinity. He received the hon- orary degree of Doctor of Divinity from Whitman College in Washington in 1921.
He was ordained a priest of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1903 and served as curate in St. John's Church, Providence, Rhode Island. From 1904 to 1906 he served in Christ Church, Detroit. During the following two years he was treasurer of Colorado College at Colorado Springs; then rector of St. Luke's Church, Fort Collins, Colorado; then of Grace Church in Colorado Springs. He was consecrated bishop of the missionary district of Western Colorado on February 2, 1917, and was transferred to the bishopric of Idaho on October 10, 1919, with his seat at Boise. Ill health caused his resignation from active service in October, 1924, and thereafter he spent his winters at Tryon, North Caro- lina, and his summers at Nantucket, where he established his legal residence.
He married Irene Chittenden Farquhar of Detroit on May 19, 1906, at Denver. She survived him with an adopted son, William Chapin, who was born May 11, 1917. Their only son, Francis Farquhar, who was born March 10, 1908, died in infancy.
Frank Touret's professional career was handicapped by ill
-
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health from the time he went to Colorado because of tuberculosis. He did recover from that illness, and for sixteen years was active and successful as a parish priest and missionary bishop, but the varied responsibilities, arduous life, and constant travel of the latter post eventually developed other physical weaknesses which required his retirement to a careful and limited way of living. Thereafter he gladly performed occasional offices as a bishop, preached as opportunity offered, and even served one or two churches for a few months at a time, but for the most part he was obliged to live quietly at home. His was a brave and cheerful spirit. He had a liberal mind, a warm affection for his friends, and an unshaken faith in the goodness of God.
H. W. F.
+ MOSES BINNEY TOWER
M OSES BINNEY TOWER died May 4, 1915, at New York City. The son of Moses Spencer and Alma (Wing) Tower, he was born at Boston, on August 13, 1873. He attended the Newton High School and was in college as a special student from 1893 to 1895 and during 1896-97. After teaching for a year at Westport, Massachusetts, he found that the ill health which had interrupted his college studies necessitated his leaving this work, and he travelled for several years in the West. He was briefly engaged. in journalism in San Diego and Los Angeles and took such part as he was able in progressive causes in religion and politics, in- cluding suffrage for women. On April 7, 1906, he married Eudora Nathalie Wylie, at Los Angeles.
WILLIAM LAWRENCE TOWER
T HE Secretary has not heard from Tower for many years and has not been able to learn his address since mail sent to him at P. O. Box 481, Carmel, California, was returned by the Post Office in 1932.
He was born December 22, 1872, at Halifax, Massachusetts, the son of Lorenzo Augustus and Mary Sheldon ( Thompson) Tower,
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and prepared at Howard High School in Halifax. At Harvard he was a student in the Lawrence Scientific School from 1893 to 1896 and during 1898-99, and in the Graduate School during 1899-1900. He received an S.B. at the University of Chicago in 1902. During 1900-01 he was professor of biology and Hoagland Professor of Physiology at Antioch College. In 1901 he became assistant in embryology and comparative anatomy at the Univer- sity of Chicago. Later he was assistant professor of zoology there. During World War I, he was a captain in the Sanitary Division of the Army. He published many articles on zoological subjects and was a member of several professional organizations.
He married Lucia Kieve on August 21, 1898, at Brighton, Massachusetts. They had three children: Lucia Elizabeth, born November 8, 1899; Sarah Sheldon, born June 8, 1901; and Law- rence Kieve, born January 11, 1904.
WALDO BROOKS TRUESDELL
CAN say that I have had a happy life," writes Truesdell. "The main factors have been a fortunate choice of schools and find- ing enduring friends in all of them; a good married life with lasting affection from my wife and children; and over forty years of teach- ing boys and men, sixty-nine terms in New York City. I have had students graduate in seventy-six commencements.
"It's been an experimental life. In 1912, when we bought the sixteen country acres, I made the suggestion that I might turn farmer next. It turned out to be vacation gardening, and now that I've been retired since 1941 and living the year round at Pachaug, Connecticut, it's still merely vacation farming. We've been able to put modern conveniences into the one hundred-and- fifty-year-old house and hope to enjoy it for years to come."
Truesdell, the son of Elnathan and Helen Maria (Brooks) Truesdell, was born February 14, 1872, at Holden, Massachusetts. He prepared at Worcester Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts. He received his A.B. cum laude with our Class, and took an A.M. at Columbia in 1912. He writes that as an undergraduate he was a member of the Harvard Track Team in 1897 and "also ran" in
I
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the meet with Penn. He attended Baptist, Unitarian, and Con- gregational churches while in Cambridge. He was a member of the Sound Money Campaign Club in 1896, and of the Harvard Forum from 1895 to 1897.
He married Edna Florence Dascombe, June 30, 1907, at Wilton, Maine. Their children: Helen Dascombe, born May 8, 1910; Martha Powers, born January 10, 1914; Raymond Kenneth Henley (foster son), born June 3, 1915; Waldo Brooks, Jr., born June 25, 1915 (died February 4, 1916); and Perry Keyes, born December 5, 1918. There are four grandchildren. In World War II, Ray- mond Henley was a first lieutenant in the U. S. Army Air Forces. He served with the 15th Division. Perry Truesdell was a techni- cian, third grade, in the Coast Artillery Corps of the Army of the United States.
From 1897 to 1902 Truesdell was a teacher at the Atlanta Bap- tist College, now Morehouse College, and from 1905 to 1907 he taught at the Wilton Academy in Wilton, Maine. From 1907 to 1941 he was an instructor in physics at the College of the City of New York.
He is the author of three articles, which appeared in Country, Time, and Tide on food, clothes, and houses; and an article, with Professor C. C. Trowbridge, on experiments with a moving light photometer, printed in Physical Review. He was elected to the Kappa Chapter of the Society of Sigma Xi in March, 1916, and is a member of the Harvard Club of Connecticut.
+ RAYMOND TUCKER
R AYMOND TUCKER died November 20, 1941, at Newton, Massa- chusetts. He was born in Boston on December 20, 1874, the son of Lewis Raymond and Cora (Johnson) Tucker, and came to Harvard from the Belmont School in Belmont, Massachusetts. After graduation he went into the insurance business in Boston, remaining there until his death, except for a brief period in New York. He was at first associated with the North American Insur- ance Company, then with O'Brion, Russell & Company, and finally had his own insurance brokerage business.
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He married Mabel Frances Gaffield at Brookline on June 27, 1900. She survived him, as did three of their children - Kathar- ine Louise, born September 8, 1901; Marjorie (Mrs. Roger B. Salinger), born February 8, 1904; and Edgar Raymond, born August 26, 1916. Another child, John Raymond, died.
Tucker was interested chiefly in four things - his family, his friends, Harvard athletic events, and golf. He rarely missed a Harvard football game or track meet. His death occurred, as he might have wished it, on the golf links.
+FELIX LÉON TUCKERMAN
ELIX LÉON TUCKERMAN died October 18, 1925, at his home, "Elysée," Trinity Hill, on the Isle of Jersey. His associates during the three years he spent at Harvard will remember well his great charm, his infectious humor, his tremendous joie de vivre, and the Continental flavor of his fascinating companion- ship. His background was more European than American, for he was born in Paris, France, on December 16, 1873, the son of Ernest and Pauline (de Piotrowski) Tuckerman, and received his early education in France. Before entering Harvard he attended Worcester Academy, and after leaving college he lived for a time in New York. He then returned to Europe and took up his resi- dence in Paris. In 1912 and again in 1917 he was living in London, where he had married Blanche Billon on March 3, 1908. During the first World War he was "interested in several charitable or- ganizations relating to the Allies." He replied to the 25th Report from his home in the Channel Islands.
LUCIUS CARY TUCKERMAN
H ow many of you are finding it as hard to compose your self- approvals, obituaries, autobiogs, or what have you, as I am?" asks Lucius Tuckerman. "Pushing a pen has always been my hardest chore, though I've managed through the years to keep in touch with friends in various parts of the world.
"Have I helped the world by living? Probably not, but I've had a fine time, full of interest, and full of valued friends from presi-
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dents to garbage collectors, admirals and generals to seabees and privates, and the rest of us.
"One of my earliest recollections is of Theodore Roosevelt and my Dad dropping me off a float in Oyster Bay and telling me to swim. That began a friendship with T.R. that grew with the years, until General Leonard Wood, whom I had known a long time, and I stood together to render our final salute at the graveside of one we dearly loved.
"On the farm at Oyster Bay I began early to use tools and learned to grow fruit, and how to ride and sail. Hence the return to farming later, the only business I really like. After World War I, my wife could not take northern winters. Running a farm from a distance wasn't too good, so in 1933 I sold the place in Milton, New York, and built our home here in Kailua, Oahu, T. H.
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