USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard College class of ninety-seven : fiftieth anniversary report, 1897 > Part 9
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He is a member of the Geological Society of America (emeri- tus), a charter member of the Mining and Metallurgical So- ciety of America, director of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, Society of Economic Geologists, of which he was the original member and served as president in 1945, Washington Academy of Sciences, Seismological Society, American Institute for the Advancement of Science, of which he is now emeritus, and Sociedad Geographica de Lima (Peru).
He is a member of the Harvard Clubs of Boston and New York, Alta Club and Fort Douglas Golf Club, both of Salt Lake City.
+ INGERSOLL BOWDITCH
NGERSOLL BOWDITCH died February 11, 1938, at Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. He was born May 31, 1875, at Jamaica Plain, the son of Charles Pickering and Cornelia ( Rockwell) Bowditch. He attended William Nichols' School in Boston and after graduat- ing from Harvard with an A.B. degree, he took an S.B. degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1900. He was en- gaged for a brief period in engineering before entering the busi- ness in which his family had been engaged for two generations before him, that of property management. He was an officer of several other firms as well and was particularly interested in the management of hospitals, on which he was an authority. As an esteemed and trusted citizen he gave great service to his com- munity. As treasurer of the Faulkner Hospital in Jamaica Plain he gave many years of valuable and devoted service.
In addition to his home at Bowditch Hill, he had a summer
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home at Chocorua, New Hampshire, where he found enjoyment in the country and out-of-doors life.
On October 18, 1904, at Cambridge, he married Sylvia Church Scudder, who with their three children - Samuel Ingersoll, '28, born March 4, 1906; Sylvia Church, born August 19, 1910; and Charles Pickering, born November 17, 1912 - survived him.
HENRY IRVING BOWLES
TN IN the fall after our Twenty-fifth Reunion," writes Bowles, "I went to Rochester as city editor of a big daily, the Rochester Herald. Later the paper was absorbed by the Gannett syndicate, and I was out. Springfield, Massachusetts, Albany, Troy, Syracuse, Bing- hamton, Wilmington, Delaware, and Virginia have left through the years a record of activity varied and illuminating.
" 'Old' Joe Ward, sometime city editor of the old Denver Post used to say that no reporter was worth a 'd -- ' until he had been fired at least six times. I don't know that I have been 'fired' six times, but I have 'quit' many times. Let an old newsman suggest that after all, one's experience makes one what one is. The young man who gets in the United States Civil Service and stays there until retired doubtless is worthy of his retirement pay. But I won- der whether his activity has not kept his mentality well within bounds. At any rate, my activity has evolved a wide-gauge per- sonality from a rather provincial one and a fearless mentality from a perhaps almost immature personality that still grasped quickly underlying causes, social, political, religious, and the like, but never was able to effect outwardly any large sphere of action in the world. In other words, if I had gone back to the old home town in 1901, settled down on the farm, married, raised a family, doubtless I would have been a big toad in a small puddle, perhaps been a prominent farmer and good citizen. But I would never have been in many activities that later developed because my nature required 'experience' to develop it to its best dimensions.
"As I look back, I doubtless would do many things differently. But by and large, I do not think I would change my life in any particular.
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"Some years ago I began a study of the history of the Christian Church. Away over the heads of most clergymen, I do discover now and then someone who understands my position. Religiously, I am convinced that the Christian Church is the basis of social development, and that upon its foundation civilization must rest. But this is the crux of the matter: history of the Christian Church has been so muddled, misinterpreted, misunderstood, and today actually perverted, that it seems little wonder nations continue to rise against nations and the very air of what should be Christian atmosphere is filled with prejudice. I know, for example, so far as scholars know, how each religious sect of Christianity came to be and how it developed. Do I find many who admit my stand? No! The ancient Keltic Church, for example, in England, found Christanity partly through its grasp of democratic essentials. It antedates all other Western Churches. Yet, here is a great and powerful Church, the Roman, until the period of Justinian small, ineffective. Yet, today, it claims precedence because it demands that folk believe it was founded by an apostle who had been dead years before Justinian was born.
"This is no tirade against religious sects. But any policy of 'intolerance as a public virtue' must be thrown overboard before real Christianity, which I believe will be the saving grace of civilization, can become effective. In other words, the very source of unselfishness, the Christian Church, all too often is setting an example of just the sort of thing that ought not to be.
"This is not the emanation of a religious enthusiast. It is the sober decision of one who for years has studied church history as a scholar. And - I came to scoff and have remained to pray.
"But seventy-two years would have been wasted if the bearer had not learned the true way of life - that, as I wrote Roger Scaife, one may subsist on two glasses of water, two eggs hard scrambled, toast and one cup of coffee for breakfast, and mostly milk with rolls and cake for the remainder of the day. Subsist, did I say? Nay, one may be rather 'like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.' 'Can't be done,' someone exclaims. 'You are not carniv- orous; even the Devil - arroint Thee, Satanic Majesty! Au der- riere!
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"But seriously, it seems too bad that one does not really learn how to live until one gets too old to enjoy oneself. Perhaps that's the best way - the compensation. But it is something to have learned that there are compensations. Frankly, my life has been so filled with doing things, for myself, to be sure, and for others, too, that there has been little time to mourn. An old friend, who is eighty-eight and was born in Virginia, seems to have so little to live for because he never did anything or had any hobbies.
"Besides my history ( recognized here as an expert ), my Church, my Boy Scouts, and my music, there are even hobbies that have financial returns - stamps for example, and old furniture. Stored away in different places are hundreds of manuscripts, not yet pub- lished, which may or may not be good, which I may will to some magazine or book publishers as examples of time devoted to en- joying oneself without financial gain.
"And, after all, I have decided that, like a classmate no longer with us, who, upon being admitted to the firm, reported that things were as before except that he formerly received a salary, but did no longer, things I now do I used to get paid for, but no longer. One wonders why the Nestorial attitude should not be as financially profitable as that of the callow youth.
"At a meeting of All Saints Church Men's Club, I was the only one who went in swimming. The pool was opened twenty-four hours before the summer season, thanks to influence political. Most of the men thought the water would be cold. Behold the ancient, clad in a Jantzen, dropping deftly from the top spring- board with two husky life guards watching. 'Very good for an old fellow,' I remarked later upon climbing out. 'Very good anyway, sir,' one of them responded courteously. I wished then that I had worn my Red Cross life-saving uniform. Evidently the 'kick' of self-satisfaction never wears old.
"Somewhere in the White Mountains one may discover fire trails made by boys under my direction. Somewhere in the Gaspé Peninsula are obliterated dog trails where I followed a mushing group of huskies. Ice-breaker barriers in the Saint Lawrence Bay, snows of the Rockies and the Sierra Madras, and the whirling waters of the Colorado River and its canyon walls are remembered.
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The pictures, of which I had almost thousands, are all gone, by fire and flood, or by purely sordid destruction of wanton hands. But the mental vision remains and the satisfaction of having seen, written about, and displayed them.
"I have been active in Boy Scout work. I obtained high honors, but am now retired. Known as 'Major' to the youngsters, I can pitch my tent, make my fire with one match, paddle a canoe in rough water, and the like. Not long ago, at a 'presentation' during a Boy Scout dinner, the director, commenting, said: 'an illustration of how not to grow old through Scouting.'
"Perhaps that's it. Things seem to have gone awry in some phases of my life. I speak from the heart, but to quote my aged father in a letter to me: 'I am an old man and most of my ene- mies are dead.' There comes a time, doubtless, when an aged man's compensation lies in dreams of the past. But I still discover much in the forward look, in association with the younger genera- tion, which, I think, needs us old fellows if our approach is along proper lines. One lad, at a display, counting my service stars, ex- claimed: 'Gee! You've been one a long time.' Actually, there is no loneliness, no 'sit in the corner' with what I may call 'my young folk'; really, they urge me to come to their meetings. 'I'm a young people,' I often tell them, and I believe this arises because one's heart is still young and one's spirit is of the future. These young- sters are our future Americans; we owe it to them to give them opportunities to try their hands in new adventures, inspiring, guiding without condemnation, directing without criticism, warn- ing without fault-finding, leading rather than driving.
"This may sound odd, coming from one not a school teacher. Perhaps that's the value of my life, if I may be over-personal, that I have done things, many of them, that I believe may stand as good examples of how to do as well as how not to do."
Bowles, the son of Henry Haviland and Abbie Adams (Wake- field ) Bowles, was born January 3, 1874, at Cherryfield, Maine. He prepared for college at Phillips Exeter Academy. He writes that as an undergraduate he played in the Pierian Sodality. He played the violin and viola and served as utility man on the trumpet, string bass, and played the trombone, tuba, and drums
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in the band. "My activities were not athletic," he writes. "I was musically inclined, philosophically active, and my devotion was to such introspective things as those and human nature."
Bowles married Edna Louise Stahl October 11, 1913, at Wash- ington, D. C. They were divorced in 1926. Their son, Henry Haviland, was born July 18, 1914.
After graduation with our Class, Bowles studied for a year in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and spent another year in the Law School. After leaving Harvard, he worked as a sales- man until 1901, travelling over the United States and Canada for his father. Then, as an engineer, he was with the American Tele- phone and Telegraph Company, and later in New York with the Bell System. Since 1907 he has been engaged in newspaper work, writing, and publishing. He was for many years a church singer and active in church work. He served as superintendent and is now treasurer of All Saints Church School. He is a member of the Virginia Historical Society, Harvard Club of Virginia, District of Columbia Mayflower Descendants, John Howland Descendants, Society of the Cincinnati, Sons of the American Revolution, Maine Society, and Knights of Pythias. He was interested in alumni work at Phillips Exeter Academy and served as secretary of a number of public and welfare clubs all over the country. He writes that he came to Virginia in 1935 for his health and was editor of several weeklies and a special writer for the Times-Dispatch and News- Leader, both dailies of Richmond. For some time he was con- cerned with publicity for tobacco sales along the Virginia southern tier of counties and for the Federal Housing Administration throughout that region.
During the first World War, he was with the duPont Company in munitions work. In World War II, he wrote publicity in Rich- mond and in Washington and served as copy editor for the Times- Dispatch during the emergency shortage of younger men. He was associate editor of a weekly in Southside, Virginia, concerned with wood conservation through southern Virginia, and was closely associated with public-relations activity for the federal government along various lines in and around Petersburg, Camp Lee, and in Richmond, and at Camp Pickett and Richmond Air
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Base. During the personnel shortage he taught engineering, math- ematics, and mechanical drawing in the public-school system of Richmond. His son saw service in the heavy artillery branch of the Army. Later disqualified on account of health, he became an entertainer in various parts of the world with troops and the Red Cross. Bowles' brother, the late Ralph Hartt Bowles, was a mem- ber of the Harvard Class of 1893.
+ DANIEL HENRY BRADLEY
ANIEL HENRY BRADLEY died October 20, 1940, at Somerville, Massachusetts. He was born November 4, 1874, at Cam- bridge, the son of Daniel and Eunice (Lafferty) Bradley. He graduated from Somerville High School and received an A.B. de- gree from Harvard in 1897 and an LL.B. in 1901. Returning to Somerville, he practised law until 1912, when he was appointed clerk of the Somerville District Court. For more than twenty years he served on the Somerville School Committee and in 1920 was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.
On January 27, 1926, he married Katherine E. (McPhilomy) Sullivan, who survived him.
+ WILLIAM GILMAN BRECK
W TILLIAM GILMAN BRECK died at St. Louis, on December 11, 1945. He was born at Springfield, Massachusetts, on June 12, 1878, the son of Theodore Frelinghuysen and Helen Cordelia (Townsend) Breck, and was prepared for college by a private tutor. He remained at Harvard - in the Lawrence Scientific School - but one year, leaving college to start in upon a railroad- ing career, which he was to follow, with distinction, during his entire lifetime.
He was first associated with the Boston & Albany Railroad Com- pany, residing, in turn, at Springfield and Brookline, Massachu- setts. He later accepted a position with the Central New England Railway, as assistant car accountant, with an office at Hartford, Connecticut. In May, 1904, he resigned that position to become chief travelling car accountant of the Rock Island Lines, covering
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a territory of eight thousand miles, with headquarters in Chicago. He was next associated with the Southern Pacific Line, with head- quarters at New Orleans, Louisiana, as assistant to the general superintendent, during the federal control of the railroads. Shortly thereafter, he was transferred to St. Louis, being placed in charge of the Terminal Transportation Committee, St. Louis and East St. Louis Terminal District, created by the director-general of rail- roads. After the railroads were returned to private ownership, he accepted a position as traffic service agent of the St. Louis Cham- ber of Commerce. He later resigned to become freight representa- tive of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, with headquarters at St. Louis. At the time of our Fortieth Anniversary Report, he was perishable freight agent for the Baltimore & Ohio-Alton Railroad in St. Louis.
He was a member of the Harvard Club of St. Louis, St. Louis Railroad Club, Wabash Club, and the Traffic Club of St. Louis.
Breck was married at Springfield, Massachusetts, on June 23, 1898, to Edith Woods. Three children were born to them: Eleanor Woods, May 15, 1899; Ruth Townsend, March 1, 1901; and Theo- dore Frelinghuysen, July 10, 1904.
H. T. N.
* BURTIS BURR BREESE
B URTIS BURR BREESE died July 31, 1939, at Cincinnati. The son of Corydon Benton and Anna Elizabeth (Tanner) Breese, he was born May 17, 1868, at Horsehead, New York. He attended Southern Kansas Academy and received an A.B. degree from the University of Kansas in 1896 before coming to Harvard. He was associated with the Class only during our senior year and took an additional A.B. in 1897. During the year 1897-98 he studied in the Graduate School, receiving an A.M. in 1898. He then studied for two years at Columbia University, where he received a Ph.D. in 1899. After one year abroad, he returned to the United States and was appointed head of the Department of Psychology and Ethics at the University of Tennessee. In 1904 he became head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Cincinnati,
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where for two years prior to his death he was professor, emeritus. He wrote a textbook on psychology which was published in 1917.
He married Lillian Burnett at Hartford Connecticut, on April 14, 1903. Their children, Burtis Burr, Jr., born June 20, 1905, and Jane, born November 6, 1908, together with his wife, survived him.
+ HANS VON BRIESEN
H ANS VON BRIESEN was born June 12, 1876, at Brooklyn, New York, the son of Arthur and Anna (Goepel) von Briesen. He attended Columbia University for two years before coming to Harvard. After graduation, he attended the New York University Law School, receiving his LL.B. in 1899. He began practice with the firm of Briesen & Knauth, founded by his father, who was for twenty-six years head of the Legal Aid Society of New York and who was said by President Theodore Roosevelt to be one of America's best citizens. Von Briesen became a partner of the firm, the name of which was at the time of his death at New York, on September 16, 1940, Briesen & Schrenk. He was a recognized authority on patent, copyright, and trade-mark law, in which he specialized. His success did nothing to lessen his devotion to his friends and relatives, and he was always ready with whatever help he could give. He was a talented musician, had a profound knowl- edge of the classics, and possessed a keen sense of humor. He never married.
A prayer composed at the time of his death reads in part:
. and especially we praise Thy Holy Name for the life and example of this our companion and friend:
For his honor and uprightness among men,
For his sense of family responsibility,
For his warmth in friendship,
For his unfailing response to all those who sought justice, For that sympathy which encompassed humanity,
For his abiding interest in the creative arts,
For his gift of humor and his gaiety of heart,
For all those graces of the spirit by which it became his joy to live for others' good.
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* WALTER REMSEN BRINCKERHOFF
W ALTER REMSEN BRINCKERHOFF, assistant professor of pathology at the Harvard Medical School, died March 2, 1911, at Bos- ton. After graduating from the Lawrence Scientific School, he went to the Medical School, taking an M.D. cum laude in 1901. He was for several years director of the United States Leprosy Investigation Station in the Hawaiian Islands. In administration, research, and teaching, he brought to his work efficiency, a power- ful and concentrated mind, and absorption in his task. A tablet was placed in the Harvard Medical School in his memory.
Brinckerhoff was born July 4, 1874, at Matteawan, New York, the son of Peter Remsen and Helen ( Morton) Brinckerhoff. He attended the Harvard School in Chicago before entering college. On August 21, 1906, he married Nellie Mandanus White at Hono- lulu. A son, Nelson, was born in 1909.
JOHN ARTHUR BROOKS
I 'N 1918," writes Brooks, "I was a director of the Syracuse Zone
of the Boys' Reserve Committee under the New York State Food Commission and also under the United States Working Re- serve under the United States Department of Labor. I had charge of sixteen counties. I was trustee and subsequently vice-president of the Board of Trustees of the New York State School of Agri- culture at Morrisville, New York.
"I was first elected in 1920 to the Assembly of the New York Legislature. While in the Assembly I secured an appropriation for a dormitory for the State School of Agriculture at Morrisville.
"I was president of the Cazenovia, New York, Community Fair, covering a radius of twenty miles from Cazenovia, and was ac- tively interested in many other matters in Madison County, New York, and Cazenovia.
"In recent years I have been very much less active but, never- theless, find life very interesting."
Brooks, the son of Walter Denison and Florence Evelyn ( Wil- liams ) Brooks, was born March 27, 1874, at Milton, Massachusetts.
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He prepared for college at Milton Academy. He was with our Class one year as a special student. He attended the Bussey In- stitution during 1896-1897. His brother, Walter Denison Brooks, is a member of the Harvard Class of 1902.
Brooks married Mary Ten Eyck Oakley, April 16, 1902, at New York City. She died January 30, 1939, in Cazenovia. Their chil- dren are: Elizabeth Ten Eyck (Mrs. Coolidge), born November 2, 1903; Evelyn Reed (Mrs. Hutchins), born May 2, 1906; Arthur Oakley, born September 12, 1911; and John Wood, born October 9, 1917. There are seven grandchildren, one of whom, Oliver Hill Coolidge, Jr., is in the Regular Army Air Force, Group Carrier Squadron in North China. Brooks's son, Arthur, is a member of the Harvard Class of '33; John was graduated in '39.
During World War II, Arthur Oakley Brooks was commissioned in the Naval Reserve in December, 1940. He was placed on active duty in June, 1941, and released to inactive duty in September, 1945, with the rank of lieutenant. John Wood Brooks entered the Army in February, 1941, was commissioned second lieutenant in June, 1942, and relieved from active duty in January, 1944, with the rank of captain.
AMMI BROWN
A' MMI BROWN, the son of Charles Ammi and Harriet Farnham (Pierce) Brown, was born October 18, 1874, at Lawrence, Massachusetts. His childhood was spent in Portland, Maine. He prepared for college at Phillips Academy, Andover. After gradua- tion with our Class, he entered the Law School, where he spent four years. He took a year at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and was awarded an A.M. in 1902.
Since leaving college he has been a teacher of law and has done literary work in international law. He translated selections from the Latin works of Francis Suarez, S.J., bearing upon international law, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D. C. In June, 1945, two volumes of his trans- lation were printed by the Clarendon Press in Oxford, England.
"After serving in Light Battery A, Second U.S. Artillery, San-
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tiago Expedition, in 1898," Brown writes, "I have been impressed at how amply this little war has justified itself despite the hulla- baloo over it by the yellow press and the war correspondents, and the wails of the anti-imperialists, plenty from Harvard. The 'antis' have never been willing to see that we ended not only the exploitation of the natives, but of hundreds of thousands of Span- ish peasant boys forced to fight and die in the tropics for the benefit of comparatively few officials, planters, and land owners.
"During World War I, I served in the aviation branch of the Signal Corps.
"I taught law from 1910 to 1917. For some years I worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the Division of International Law. Despite all the good work that this and other foundations have done, there should be better ways devised to prevent a sense of ownership arising in the trustees, preferably by changing the boards more frequently.
"I am deeply interested in the efforts of the American Society of International Law and of other societies to which I belong in an effort to promote the success of the United Nations. The only hope of the world is to prevent resort to violence by an interna- tional armed force and by the creation of an international public opinion by men of good will, despite the cynicism of the Hearst- McCormick clans and other isolationists.
"I am a broad-church Episcopalian. I am deeply interested in the study of Dante. I favor the so-called 'Perennial Philosophy' of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Cardinal Mercier and Étienne Gilson. The last-named in his address on 'The Unity of Philo- sophical Experience' at the Harvard Tercentenary exposed the jungle of modern philosophy."
CHARLES ERNEST BROWN
T - THE Secretary has not heard from Charles Brown since the Fortieth Anniversary Report, when he was with the Red Jacket Telephone Company in Shortsville, New York. Previously, he had taught in Jenner's Preparatory School, Syracuse, New York, and the High School at Oneida, New York. From 1905 to 1920 he
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