USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard College class of ninety-seven : fiftieth anniversary report, 1897 > Part 59
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Though a certain shyness limited his circle of close friends, White's youthful enthusiasm and high spirits were most attractive. While the more serious side of his nature was rarely revealed, he was warm-hearted and intensely loyal and had a strong and simple faith.
HAROLD TREDWAY WHITE
I AM sure," writes Harold White, "that what I said in previous Reports is still the truth as to my state of mind at seventy. If any major trend has developed in the last twenty years, it is a consuming passion for the chase, birds, and fish, or to be more specific, partridge, quail, pheasant, dove, woodcock, geese, duck, salmon, and trout. I like the surroundings in which I find this game and enjoy killing them and eating them, too. I like rising before sun-up and standing all day in a duck blind, preferably not in the rain, or freezing at 7 A.M. in a South Carolina field with a temperature about 32° and the doves coming in to feed.
"I like trying to throw a salmon fly farther and more neatly than the guide can, and I get a real thrill out of the savage pull when an Atlantic salmon grabs the lure. Also, I like to catch little trout in little brooks, or in mountain lakes, or indeed anywhere.
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"For thirty years I have been a partner in White, Weld & Com- pany. I am fortunate in having many partners who do practically all the work and do not expect me to be on hand much of the time. However, certain other responsibilities, business and philan- thropic, have gradually accumulated and keep me moderately busy. For instance, I am a trustee and chairman of the Finance Committee of the Russell Sage Foundation, and also chairman of the Executive Committee of the Ausable Club, which operates a large summer colony at Keene Valley, New York, and controls for use by its members and the public a great tract of land, most of which has never been lumbered or burned.
"After my wife's death in 1944, the opportunity came to me to buy, improve, and present to the Community Service Society of New York a large house on East 18th Street, which the Society now operates as a temporary home for girls who find life's prob- lems too difficult to face without expert advice and away from their family connections. The house is named 'Dosoris,' after the place at Glen Cove where my wife spent much of her childhood. It has rooms for sixteen girls and a staff of several social workers, who are doing a splendid job for a shifting clientele with excel- lent results.
"I have been, at one time or another, a director of the Washing- ton Water Power Company, Fidelity & Casualty Company, Fed- eral Insurance Company, and Hackensack Water Company, of which I am now chairman of the Board. I have also been presi- dent and am now secretary of the Provident Loan Society of New York, and am a trustee and chairman of the Family Service Com- mittee of the Community Service Society of New York.
"I am a member of the Harvard Club of New York, University Club of New York, Down Town Association, and several shooting and fishing clubs. For a number of years I have served on the Committee to Visit the Harvard Library and have enjoyed the association immensely."
White, the son of William Augustus White, '63, and Harriet Hillard, was born October 10, 1875, at Brooklyn, New York. He was prepared for college by a tutor. He was graduated with our Class after four years in college.
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"I had four tranquil, happy years at Harvard," he writes, "but achieved no literary or athletic triumphs. For no particularly good reason, I was elected to membership in the Institute of 1770 and to honorary membership in the Hasty Pudding Club. I special- ized in Elizabethan literature, especially English II, under Pro- fessor Child, who had taught my father in 1863, and in my senior year under Professor Kittredge."
: White married Ruth Underhill, February 27, 1904, at Deland, Florida. She died August 12, 1944, in Philadelphia. Their chil- dren are: Elizabeth (Mrs. Maske), born August 13, 1908; John Underhill, born December 7, 1911; and Harold Tredway, Jr., born June 26, 1914. There are seven grandchildren, the latest of whom, Erik Maske, was adopted by White's daughter in Norway. In World War I, Mrs. White was active in victory garden work in Westchester County, New York. During World War II, Harold Tredway, Jr., Harvard '37, served as chief boatswain's mate in the U. S. Coast Guard Reserve.
White's son, John, is a member of the Harvard Class of 1934. His brother, the late Alexander Moss White, was graduated in '92.
CHARLES FREDERICK WHITING
M Y courses in college were of a general nature without direc- tion to a definite goal," writes Charles Whiting, "but they have been an unfailing source of aid and satisfaction.
"By the time of graduation I had decided to enter the milk business of my family, originated by my grandfather. The im- portance of milk in diet and of its cleanliness and the application of the newly developed science of bacteriology had just come to the fore. After a survey of the opportunities of study on a trip abroad, I made the choice of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology for a two years' course in the chemistry and bacteriology of milk. I was most fortunate to be guided there by the stimula- tion and widely cultured Professor Sedgwick.
"The years following were busily and happily spent in family life and in the application of my teaching in the laboratory, in the field, and in the plant. I was in the vanguard in the movement
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for the production of 'certified milk'; of 'modified milk' (an ad- justment of the component parts of milk to suit the digestion of infants) on a scale available to the underprivileged districts where infant mortality was rampant; of 'sugar free' milk for diabetics in collaboration with Dr. Elliott P. Joslin; of the pro- duction of milk sugar; of the promotion of sanitation on dairy farms (my early work by bicycle through the country); and of the establishment of 'pasteurization,' the beneficent process of Louis Pasteur for the destruction of germs inimical to health. In these enterprises I was stimulated and aided by the imaginative and creative energy of my wife.
"In time I was brought into the administrative department of the business, which had exacting but interesting fields of relation with producers, railroads, labor, public regulation bodies, and consumers, a reconciliation of which constituted a full-time job.
"For assistance in solving the problems of the industry the International Association of Milk Dealers had been created, and I was its president for three years in the period of the depression, which brought me into intimate contact with Washington agen- cies.
"At this juncture my associates in the ownership of the business made, against my judgment and protest, a most injudicious con- tract for sale, which resulted in the business going into hostile hands, in financial sacrifice to me, and in severance from my life work. An abrupt change of life became necessary, but fortunately both my wife and I were able to meet the shock without physical or mental disaster. In this period of readjustment my son had entered Harvard College, and I have to acknowledge gratefully the aid of the '97 scholarship rendered graciously by the Class Committee. Here is evidence of the usefulness of the fund and of the wisdom of the Committee in its creation.
"In due time I found part-time occupation on the Board of Investment of the Charlestown Five Cents Savings Bank with which I had been associated as trustee. Other activities filled in and, far from being retired, I am as busy as I have ever been.
"Since I was in full occupation in an essential industry at the time of World War I, I did not get into service. In World War II,
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my family rendered full duty. My son, who had just completed his first year of work after graduation, entered the service through the draft as a private and on discharge four years later was a captain in the Army Air Forces. A son-in-law, Colonel Laurence B. Ellis, was chief medical officer in a base hospital in England; another, Commander James D. King, was an officer of instruction in a school at Miami, Florida; and another, Lieutenant Commander Frank L. Young, 2d, taught in the training schools in Norfolk, Virginia. My daughters, too, did their part in managing their families in the difficult war-time period.
"Through the years I have occasionally had the pleasurable op- portunity of writing a biography, but an autobiography is another matter, and only the goad of our Secretary has brought it about."
Whiting, the son of Harvey Augustus and Mary Elizabeth (Kimball) Whiting, was born July 27, 1875, at Wilton, New Hampshire. He prepared at Hale's School in Boston, and received his A.B. degree after four years with our Class. He married Isabel Kimball, September 4, 1902, at Wilton. Their children are: Alice, born June 30, 1905; Mary Elizabeth, born October 24, 1906; Dorothea, born April 12, 1912; and Charles Frederick, Jr., born April 23, 1919. There are five grandchildren. Charles Frederick Whiting, Jr., received his A.B. from Harvard in 1940. Whiting's brother, the late Isaac Spalding Whiting, was graduated with the Class of 1881. Alice Whiting received an A.B. at Bryn Mawr in 1927 and a Ph.D. at Radcliffe in 1936.
Whiting has served on committees of the First Parish Church (Unitarian) in Cambridge. He was a member of the Cambridge City Council in 1910 and served as president of the Cambridge Public School Association and Cambridge Community Center, a negro settlement house. He was assistant treasurer of the Whiting Milk Companies in Boston; president of David Whiting & Sons of Wilton, New Hampshire; director of the Wilton Railroad Com- pany; president of the International Association of Milk Dealers; and a member of the Committee on Agriculture of the United States Chamber of Commerce. He belongs to the Twentieth Century Club, Cambridge Club, Cambridge Historical Society, and Faculty Club.
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EDWARD ELWELL WHITING
S INCE leaving college," reports Edward Whiting, "where I was an accomplished loafer, I have found life interesting, and still do. It is worth while and I think I'll stick it out. I was more or less predestined to be a writer, my father having been associated with the Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican, from 1868 to 1922, my mother and my sister and two maiden aunts having done a deal of newspaper writing, and my father having written two admirable books on nature as well as some excellent poetry. They were all inky.
"One of my earliest hobbies as a small boy was a printing press. At the age of around nine I wrote, while sick in bed, a 'short story' to kill time, but I recovered. After my beloved mother's death (at the age of ninety-two and a half), I found that old liter- ary effort, written on vivid orange paper, carefully treasured by my mother, in her strong box. I have written poorer stuff since - and been paid for it. I was a pure amateur then.
"Omitting the dullest details, let it suffice that I have through the years served as reporter, special writer, editorial writer, editor, Washington correspondent, political analyst, columnist, and the like.
"I worked on the Springfield Homestead, a weekly, Boston Evening Record, Boston Daily Advertiser, Boston Traveler, Bos- ton Herald, Springfield Republican, Worcester Telegram, and the Worcester Evening Gazette.
"On the old Record, when it was a real paper, pre-tabloid days, I survived four changes of ownership, remaining throughout as editor, resigning in a huff or a high and low dudgeon. Enough is enough. Mr. Hearst got the remains - but not mine.
"Later, on the Boston Herald, I wrote various things, first on space. Then for some years I wrote a feature, modestly titled (not by my choosing), 'Whiting's Column.' It had success and brought me 'fan mail.'
"Though sunk from the high planes of journalism to the sinks of iniquity and business in later and riper and incipiently de- caying years, I still write and get paid for it. I have reported
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every Republican and most of the Democratic National Conven- tions since 1920, for the Boston Record, then the Boston Herald, and in these days for the Worcester Telegram and the Gazette. I do not successfully write what is called fiction, but I write a deal of politics, which is probably kin. In the Worcester Sunday Telegram I write a weekly political column, which I undertake to make pretty much non-partisan under the by-line 'Beacon Hill.' It is a weekly analysis or interpretation of the immediate politi- cal situation in Massachusetts or/and in Washington, served without bias. Lately it has been hard to do it, without bias, that is.
"For some years I have contributed a 'Whiting's Boston Letter,' (and again, that ghastly personal title was not of my choosing), which has had favorable reception, to the Springfield Republican. At this writing that horse, the S.R., has been shot from under me, being moribund, so I am about to peddle the Boston letter else- where.
"I have several books in mind. I can't seem to get 'em out. Short of time. One of them will be a good one if I ever get up energy enough to complete it.
"Now for the fall. In September, 1927, Governor Alvan T. Fuller (Republican) appointed me a member of the Board of Public Trustees of the Boston Elevated Railway. He said I had been sniping at the railroad in my writing, so he called my bluff. He re-apointed me in 1928. Ten years later I was again re-ap- pointed by Governor Charles F. Hurley ( Democrat), who desig- nated me chairman. I guess I'm stuck. These days it is no bed of roses.
"What are life's 'durable satisfactions?' I'm still looking."
Whiting, the son of Charles Goodrich and Eliza Rose (Gray) Whiting, was born February 18, 1875, at Springfield, Massachu- setts. He prepared for college at the Williston Seminary in East- hampton, Massachusetts. He was with our Class three years. As an undergraduate he was a member of the Wendell Phillips Club, Serapion Club, Theta Delta Chi, and the Episcopal Church. He married Margaret Smith Webster, October 3, 1906, at Spring- field. She died. He married Margaret Robbins, September 1,
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1943, at New York. His daughter is Margery Rose Whiting, who was born April 29, 1915.
During World War II, Whiting was a post warden, neighbor- hood warden, and blackout officer. He has been chairman of the Board of Public Trustees of the Boston Elevated Railway, direc- tor and president of the Transit Mutual Insurance Company of Boston, member of the corporation and trustee of the Deaconess Hospital in Boston, trustee of Williston Academy, director and vice-president of the Pocumtuck Memorial Association in Deer- field, Massachusetts, and member of the Advisory Council of the School of Practical Arts in Boston. He was appointed by Governor Calvin Coolidge a member of a temporary unpaid commission to study legislation in behalf of maternity benefits. Dr. Worcester was chairman.
He is the author of President Coolidge, a Contemporary Esti- mate, published in 1923; Calvin Coolidge - His Ideals of Citizen- ship, published in 1924; and Changing New England, published in 1929. He has contributed articles to the Atlantic, Collier's, Woman's Home Companion, the Modern Priscilla, and to many newspapers.
He is a former member of the Harvard Faculty Club, a member of the Harvard Club of Boston; Boston Authors' Club; Saturday Club, Newtonville; Tuesday Club, Newton; Neighborhood Club, West Newton; Men's Club of West Newton; Central Club, New- tonville; New England Transit Club; Puddingstone Club, Boston; Masons; Dalhousie Lodge, Newton; and Fourth Estate, Boston.
WILLIAM WHITMAN, JR.
A FTER leaving college," reports Whitman, "I went to the Arling- ton Mills, Lawrence, Massachusetts, to study the manufac- ture of worsted fabrics, I remained there less than a year and then entered the employ of Harding, Whitman & Company, merchants and manufacturers, at their Boston office. In January, 1902, I changed my headquarters to New York, and two years later was admitted to the firm. The firm name was changed to William Whitman & Company in 1909, and in 1913 the business was incor-
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porated. Compelled to give up active work temporarily, I bought a farm at Simsbury, Connecticut, where I remained until Decem- ber, 1914. I then returned to active business with the company at the New York office, and in 1916 moved my headquarters to our Boston office. In 1925 I became president of the company and served as director on the Boards of our affiliated mills.
"In April, 1945, the family interest in William Whitman Com- pany, Incorporated, was sold, and I became chairman of the Board of Directors of the new company. This year, after nearly fifty years in textiles, I decided to retire from active business, and from now on my efforts will be confined to the details of the farm.
"Boating and fishing claimed much of my spare time, but, with the advent of World War II, I gave up sailing.
"Life's 'durable satisfactions' are that Mrs. Whitman and I can enjoy our 'leisure' in the great outdoors; our children are happily situated in their chosen fields; and last, but not least, my company was commended in letters for its contribution to both World Wars and our affiliated mills received the 'E' awards and stars from the government of the United States."
Whitman, the son of William and Jane Dole (Hallett) Whit- man, was born June 28, 1874, at Andover, Massachusetts. He prepared at the Roxbury Latin School. He was graduated with our Class after four years in college. He married Ruth Loring, June 1, 1898, at Boston. They had four children: William Whit- man, 3d, born August 1, 1900 (died September 3, 1939); Ruth (Mrs. Pennypacker), born March 5, 1899; Loring, born February 15, 1904; and Nelson, born May 14, 1916. There are eleven grandchildren. William Whitman, 3d, was a member of the Har- vard Class of 1922, and Loring received his A.B. in 1925, and his M.D. in 1930. Whitman has three Harvard brothers: the late Malcolm Douglass Whitman, '99; the late Eben Esmond Whit- man, '04; and Hendricks Hallett Whitman, '06.
William, 3d, was a lieutenant in the Army of the United States in World War I. During the last World War, Dr. Loring Whit- man served as a major in the Army Medical Corps. Whitman's grandsons, William Whitman, 4th, and Hugh Whitman, served as privates first class in the Army of the United States.
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Whitman is a member of the Harvard Clubs of Boston and New York, Somerset Club, and Country Club of Farmington, Con- necticut.
+ RICHARD MERRILL WHITNEY
R ICHARD MERRILL WHITNEY died August 16, 1924, at New York City. Except for a period during the Spanish-American War when he served as a second lieutenant in the Sixth Missouri Vol- unteer Infantry, he devoted most of his career to newspaper work. He worked in most of the large cities of the country and served abroad as a foreign correspondent. He was Associated Press correspondent at the State Department in Washington and also conducted investigations in Central and South America.
The son of Charles Albert and Martha (Merrill) Whitney, he was born November 10, 1874, at St. Albans, Maine. He prepared for college at Phillips Academy, Andover, and took an A.B. at Harvard in 1897. On June 6, 1900, at Manchester, New Hamp- shire, he married Mary Pierce Johnson. They had five children: Helen Martha, born June 12, 1901 (died December 6, 1903); William Noyes, born June 19, 1903; Richard Merrill, Jr., born September 2, 1911; Martha Greenleaf, born June 6, 1915; and Mary Elizabeth, born June 6, 1915 (died July 4, 1917).
RICHARD WHORISKEY
R' ICHARD WHORISKEY died February 21, 1922, at Durham, New Hampshire, after an active career in education. After gradu- ating with the Class, he attended the Graduate School until January, 1899, when he took charge of the Department of Mod- ern Languages at New Hampshire State College. The college then had an enrollment of about one hundred students. At the time of his death, there were almost a thousand. His devotion to his work was undoubtedly influential in bringing about the col- lege's growth. In addition to his teaching duties, he held several administrative posts, both in the college and in the state. He made several trips to Europe and in 1914 served for a time as
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volunteer in the American Consulate at Hanover, Germany. Dur- ing the first World War he gave part of his time to lecturing to soldiers on the causes of the war and was called by a visiting gen- eral "professor of morale." He was deeply loyal both to the college where he taught and to his Alma Mater, and his winning personality and constant interest were a welcome part of our reunions.
Whoriskey was born December 2, 1874, at Cambridge, and prepared for college at the Cambridge Latin School. His parents were Richard and Anne Catherine ( Carroll) Whoriskey. He was unmarried.
+ HERVEY BACKUS WILBUR
H ERVEY BACKUS WILBUR was born August 25, 1876, at Syracuse, New York, the son of Hervey Backus and Frances Emily (Petheram) Wilbur. He died September 26, 1941, at Seattle, where he had lived since 1910. He came to Harvard from St. Paul's School and was in college two years. He later looked back on those two years with great pleasure and in our Twenty-fifth Report spoke with regret of the fact that circumstances had not allowed him to complete his college course. After leaving Har- vard, he spent the ensuing fifteen years travelling about the coun- try in the hardware and cutlery business. When his travels took him to Seattle, he found the city so much to his liking that he returned there to settle.
He entered the automobile tire business but left it in 1918 to give all his time to war work. He was very active in the Liberty Loan and other drives. The affairs of the Episcopalian Church were of great interest to him. He was a vestryman of the Church of the Epiphany in Seattle and for many years represented the diocese at provincial synods and general conventions. It was largely through his efforts that two Church Missions were built for the Japanese people of Seattle and adjacent territory. He was at one time president of the Seattle Harvard Club. Classmate Frank Sawyer Bayley, also of Seattle, wrote of him, "Hervey was truly interested in the things that are worth while, and he eman-
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ated a wholesome goodness that made him in his quiet way a contributing factor to the better life of Seattle."
He was survived by his wife, the former Leda Edmonds Pink- ham, whom he married September 27, 1911.
HENRY JASON WILDER
TN newly settled countries the land is usually exploited for early returns," writes Wilder, "and little is done to maintain crop yields. As time goes on and yields go down, new land is taken up as long as it is available, and so in the United States we moved gradually from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. After a few generations, however, an end came to exploiting land in any given area, and we were forced to develop methods of producing more per acre.
"The increased amount of labor required with more intensive production lessens, however, the number of acres that can be farmed per man unit. Steadily improving machinery makes it possible to expand acreage per man unit, but eventually machin- ery improvement does not lessen the need for also getting high yields per acre.
"So an economic balance must be maintained by the individual farmer according to the conditions that prevail in his generation. The agricultural history of the United States has shown that cer- tain combinations of climatic and soil factors are especially favor- able for certain crops, as corn on the black prairie soils of the Middle West where the long summer nights are hot. The best wheat areas are found in the north, as in Minnesota, with a shorter growing season, and on soils that produce somewhat less vigorous vegetative growth, as hard wheat makes better flour than a softer wheat.
"When locating on a farm, an individual farmer should be able to locate in an area where the farming practice is well established, or be able to adapt his methods to the local conditions, realizing that in most areas there is much variation. Similar conditions prevail in fruit growing and in other crop production.
"In county agricultural extension work one has opportunity not
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only for detailed activities along these lines, but also for working out some of the solutions for the betterment of food production and for community living.
"Until April, 1901, I taught physics and chemistry at Dummer Academy, South Byfield, Massachusetts. Then until September, 1914, I worked for the Bureau of Soils, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., doing field work principally. I then became associated with the Agricultural Extension Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., and remained here until November, 1921. I then went into the Agricultural Extension Service of the California College of Agri- culture at Berkeley as county farm adviser for San Bernardino. I was retired January 31, 1943.
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