USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard College class of ninety-seven : forty-fifth anniversary report, 1897 > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7
During the war he engaged in volunteer work at the Boston Head- quarters American Fund for French Wounded. In 1917, however, owing to ill-health he was obliged to stop work but, after regaining his health, made another European trip in 1921 visiting many of the battlefields and devastated countries of the Western Front. Since then he considered himself retired.
Business as an end for increasing one's material wealth did not appeal to him, though in the management of his own property he showed much shrewdness and ability, and he emerged from the Depression well on the upgrade. He was withal of a charitable dis-
[13]
Harvard Class of Ninety-Seven
position and interested himself in many organizations where his help and suggestions were greatly appreciated. He was studious and could be often found poring over a book in the library of the Harvard Club of Boston. He seldom failed to attend the Wednesday evening gatherings in Harvard Hall. Hating all sham and pretence and standing for righteousness and honesty in public as in private life, he could only look with dismay and apprehension at the wanton waste of our country's resources and at the breakdown of all moral fibre as shown not only on the part of such a large proportion of our population but on the part of so many self-seeking politicians. Only some ten days before the end he expressed himself forcibly as utterly opposed to the present policies of those in high places and in his strong belief that such methods too long continued could only lead to utter disaster. In his going the Class has lost one strong in the integrity and character which in the past has so shaped the destiny of our country. Too few of such are left.
He was married on January 15, 1924 to Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Fader, who survives him.
W. P.T.
MAURICE JAMES CONNOR died at Manchester, New Hamp- shire, on March 23, 1939. He was born in the same city, on Septem- ber 1, 1872, the son of Michael and Bridget (Scannell) Connor, and was prepared for college at Phillips Exeter Academy. After leav- ing Harvard in 1896, he returned to Manchester, where for several years he was associated with his father in the latter's well-established business in that city. It was during this period, also, that he served three terms in the New Hampshire legislature.
Sturdy and powerful as an undergraduate, Connor was a member of our Freshman Football team, and of the Varsity squad. Hence, it was but natural that he should respond instantly to the call of his old school, Exeter, abandoning his business career to accept the post of head football coach at that institution - conspicuous alike for its athletic, as well as for its educational, standing among the schools of New England. Such was his success as a football coach that he
[14]
Forty-Fifth Anniversary Report
was offered, and accepted, like positions at Dartmouth, Holy Cross, Bowdoin, Michigan, and Northwestern University. While at this last-named post, he took up the study of law - with the result that he established himself in the practice at Des Moines, Iowa, where he remained for seven years.
Then followed an interval of two years - spent in Virginia, or in traveling extensively throughout the Missouri and Mississippi valleys and "studying the possibilities of investment in prairie land farms of the Middle West." In 1921, en route for California, Connor stopped off at Omaha, Nebraska, to renew a long and highly prized friendship with his old school and college friend - and, incidentally, a Freshman Football team-mate - our fellow-classman, Dr. Robert Russell Hollister. It was a happy and a noteworthy reunion for these two '97 stalwarts, for it resulted in Connor's taking up residence in that city and establishing a law office there - a decision which was to govern the remainder of his life. And these proved active and busy years for him, since his legal practice demanded that he spend most of his time prosecuting oil recovery and old swindling cases throughout the states of Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas - as well as engaging in mortgage foreclosure cases and oil- land leasing projects in western Kansas, operating out of Omaha.
Yet there was a softer, less strenuous side to Connor's character, known only to his intimates during his undergraduate days - a love of literature and of poetry, half hidden under a guise of rather apologetic banter. "Good old Shakespeare! Good old Jonson!" he would exclaim, with a toss of his auburn locks and a half timid joy, as one joined him in the Yard, returning from class; and then, in sudden embarrassment: "How do you think we're going to come out with B. A. A. tomorrow?" Or "I was talking with 'Ma' Newell yesterday, and he said" - as if to cover a momentary weakness. And it was this same latent, semi-suppressed "weakness" that was to find outlet and expression in his later, more mature years - for frequent articles and occasional bursts of "divine fire" somehow found their way to the columns of the western press - to his amused delight and satisfaction.
[ 15]
Harvard Class of Ninety-Seven
One, at least, of his classmates likes to think that however much he may have treasured his accomplishments on the football field and in his legal battles, "Roger" Connor might well have taken an even greater satisfaction and a more amused delight in the words of Carlyle: "There is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed."
H. T. N.
JOHN ARCHIBALD COVENEY died on September 7, 1937, at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, after a long illness. Born in Boston May 1, 1876, the son of William and Maria (McGann) Coveney, he attended the Somerville High School and entered Har- vard in 1893, received an A.B. degree in 1896 and an LL.B. in 1899. Upon graduation he entered the law office of Charles F. Donnelly in Boston and in 1904 married Orphise Anemone Morand. During the war years he served as a member of the legal advisory board. In 1923 he removed to New York where in addition to the practice of the Law he served as one of the editors of "Corpus, Juris," the legal encyclopedia, and collaborated in writing other legal works. Return- ing to Boston in 1930, he resumed the general practice of the Law, residing in Brookline. His wife survives him.
R. L. S.
IRVILLE FAY DAVIDSON died at New Orleans, Louisiana, December 27, 1940. For twenty-six years he had been professor of Latin and Greek at St. Stephen's College (now Bard College) Annandale-on-Hudson. He retired in 1940. For a half-year in 1919 he served as acting president of the college, and he had also been director of the college library (1904-26) and dean of the college (1918-25).
Davidson was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, January 26, 1875, the son of Jonas Keith and Henrietta Cordelia (Nash) David- son. He prepared for College at Brookline (Mass.) High School and at North High School, Weymouth, Mass. He taught at St. Thomas Hall, Holly Springs, Mississippi (1897-98); Mt. Pleasant Military Academy, Ossining, New York; and at Lakewood, New
[ 16 ]
Forty-Fifth Anniversary Report
Jersey, School (1900-04). He was instructor in Greek and Latin at St. Stephen's (1898-1900 and 1904-13). Davidson wrote, “It is a privilege to be continuously in contact with youth and its ideas and ideals."
In 1901 he married Helen Van Wagner of Troy, New York. Two children survive him.
R. L. S.
JAMES DEAN, perhaps, was not born a genius; but his remark- able life seems to be due to his genius for acquiring perfection by constantly giving forethought to his various activities. When others laboriously worked out problems as they came up, he already had their solutions, with the certainty of a man who had studied them as his profession.
Deeply religious, his dealings were always fair, and, universally, he was known as a "straight shooter." His resulting depth of char- acter, combined with his simplicity, gave him powers of attraction few obtain.
On December 31, 1924, after he had made a fortune which was adequate, he retired from commercial business as a partner in a banking firm. It was, doubtless, his preconceived policy not to pile fortune upon fortune; believing that it was right and best to stop when he had attained his set goal. This point was reached soon after our twenty-fifth report was published, which gives a good picture of his ability, his capacity for hard work, and his mastery of the problems of finance and banking, which brought him out- standing success. This seems a full life for any one man, but he never intended to "retire" in any final sense, for he began, almost immediately, another life, virtually of public service.
In his second career, although he undertook many other responsi- bilities, his interests became centered on Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Co .; Wellesley College; and New England Mutual Life In- surance Co.
He was elected to the Board of Directors of the bank in 1925; to its Executive Committee in 1926; and to Chairmanship of the Board
[ 17 ]
Harvard Class of Ninety-Seven
of Directors and of the Executive Committee in March 1932. This constituted him head of the bank, and required his daily and full- time attention. His interest was intense. Even when on vacation he called up the bank almost daily. He was a sound man responsible for a sound bank.
In 1928 he was made Treasurer of Wellesley College. The Presi- dent of its Board of Trustees, Robert G. Dodge, Esq., '93, thus describes his services :
"As Treasurer of Wellesley College for fourteen years Jim Dean rendered most valuable service. His primary duty in that con- nection was concerned with the investment of the funds of the college amounting to some $10,000,000. He had wide knowledge of securities and of the trends of the stock market. He was conservative without being by any means too much so. He handled the funds skillfully.
"Beyond this, and wholly apart from his financial duties, he was a very important member of the board of trustees. He took the greatest interest in the college and was a frequent visitor there. He was devoted to its interests and generous in the matter of gifts from his own funds when opportunities to make gifts were presented to the trustees. I do not recall his ever missing a meeting of the board during his long term and he was always present at the Commence- ment Exercises and very often at other college functions."
President McAfee adds:
"Mr. Dean's contribution to Wellesley College was far greater than is involved in his masterly handling of our funds. He was a member of our Building Committee and was much concerned about all the problems related to the maintenance of the plant. More than that, he was actively concerned with the maintenance of a high academic standard. On many occasions I have heard him say that the most important item in the budget was the salary of the faculty members, and that point of view is not universal among college treasurers.
"It was his practice to come virtually every Sunday, during the winter to the College Chapel service. Because he was such a familiar
[18]
Forty-Fifth Anniversary Report
figure on the campus, he was known to a good many students. I think the thing we will find hardest to replace will be Mr. Dean's genuine concern about the purposes of the college. He never let his desire for saving the resources of the College thwart the accom- plishment of its purposes, and the safeguarding of the funds was never as important as the safeguarding the welfare of the institu- tion. On the other hand, when Mr. Dean approved an appropria- tion those of us at the College had complete confidence in the financial wisdom of the plan which had been approved."
Some of his associates in the Insurance Company give him the following tribute:
"To every business associate of James Dean his death brought the deepest personal sorrow, not merely for the loss of a wise and valued counsellor, but for the loss of a dear friend. He had been a director of the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company for more than fourteen years and a member of its important Finance Com- mittee since February 15, 1928. His service to the company was of the highest quality. He was deeply interested in its welfare and de- voted to its interests. In spite of many other calls upon his time he was regular in his attendance at meetings of the board and always ready to bring his wide knowledge of affairs and his sound judgment to the aid of his colleagues in the solution of the problems of the company. His contribution to the work of the Investment Com- mittee was of the greatest value. With long experience in appraising the trends of the security market and unusual sagacity in the selec- tion of investments he was a tower of strength to the Committee. Beyond all this lay the personal charm which so endeared him to his multitude of friends to whom his sudden death came as a blow."
Among his other activities, he was Treasurer, and on the Board of, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary; Treasurer of Trustees of the Fund for the Defenders of Public Safety (started at the Boston Police Strike); Director of Brookline Trust Co .; Trustee of Brook- line Savings Bank; Trustee of Northeastern University; and Trustee of several private trusts.
This intensive work, however, did not make him dull. He turned
[19]
Harvard Class of Ninety-Seven
it off quickly and systematically, as a master of his profession, and apparently left it behind in his office, for he seldom, if ever, talked shop at home or on vacation.
His social life was as full and successful as his business activities. His existence was bound up in his wife and children. However far from home, his daily telephone talks gave him joy, to hear their voices, to know their activities, even the weather in Cohasset. "The Deans," perfect hosts and delightful guests, were in demand by their large circle of friends. He was a member of the Algonquin Club; Country Club; Cohasset Golf Club; Cohasset Yacht Club; Down Town Club; Harvard Club of Boston; Harvard Club of New York; Harvard Varsity Club; Somerset Club; Tennis & Racquet Club; Union Club; Eastern Yacht Club; Scituate Yacht Club and New York Yacht Club.
His interest in sports did not wane. Never seeking recognition for his own accomplishments, he has said that his '97 Varsity baseball team (with a first class battery of Charlie Paine and Dave Scannell) did not get sufficient credit for starting the up-swing of Harvard athletics by beating Yale, two straight. He played tennis as long as he thought wise, and then golf, but his interest in cruising was always paramount.
Cruising was his recreation; it enabled him to get through the year. He always had an adequate yacht, but, a few years ago, he had built a beautiful schooner, characteristically supervising every detail of design and construction. Captain Jim, as skipper, was as careful in plotting the daily runs as in charting the course of a bank. His guest crew likened his cruises to stepping off this hard world into Heaven. Every Sunday, after early service, he sailed out to the Boston Lightship, carrying Sunday papers to its crew.
James Dean was one of the financial geniuses of his generation, but, as one of his close friends said, he was so modest that few realized it. His leadership in business and friendship was not due to any harsh qualities of rugged individualism, but to his earnest- ness, directness, and all the other attributes of a Christian gentleman.
A. M. B.
[20 ]
Forty-Fifth Anniversary Report
HENRY BRADLEE FENNO died at Falmouth, Massachusetts, on July 25, 1941. While visiting the factory of a friend, he had suffered a sudden and violent fall, causing a fracture of the skull and instant death. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on Au- gust 14, 1873, the son of Edward Nicoll (Harvard 1866) and Ellen Marion (Bradlee) Fenno; was prepared for Harvard at the Private Classical School of Mr. J. P. Hopkinson in Boston; and was grad- uated with us in 1897.
Illness in early youth hindered "Brad" Fenno from sharing in the more robust schoolboy and undergraduate athletic activities of his brother, our much loved classmate Edward Nicoll ("Pete") Fenno, Jr., but gifted by nature with a sweet, appealing voice, a graceful, becoming body, and an almost feminine delicacy of beauty, his talents found compensating expression in his love of music and, more especially, in his fondness for the lyric and rhythmic stage.
His active and vivacious membership in our Varsity Glee Club, and his long-to-be-remembered grace and charm so evident in our D. K. E. and Hasty Pudding performances, were but the forerunners of a life-long enthusiasm for both the amateur and professional musical, theatrical and "show" worlds. His boyhood summer home at Falmouth became, in later years, the scene of constant entertain- ment and gaiety. The following tribute of appreciation and affection, quoted from the Falmouth Enterprise, records:
Members of the University Players and the Beach Theatre will recall Mr. Fenno as a genial host who entertained the entire companies at parties at his home. His friends included both the great and the more obscure of the stage. When Fred Stone came to the Cape he visited Mr. Fenno at his Quisset home. In his sixties, he retained a boyish delight in circuses and shows. He traveled miles each summer to attend circus performances, and numbered among his close friends Felix Adler, Ringling Brothers' famous clown. For more than twenty years he ar- ranged a yearly visit of circus performers to shut-in children at the Children's Hospital in Boston. "I get a great kick out of it," he used to say, "for the joy it gives the youngsters." He also "got a kick" out of his own occasional appearance in circus cos- tume. "Tonight I am going to appear on the back of an ele-
[21 ]
Harvard Class of Ninety-Seven
phant," he wrote The Enterprise a year ago when Ringling's was in Boston, "in the spectacle, Marco Polo, which precedes the circus performance. I shall be resplendent in gorgeous East- ern costume. I hope my friends in the audience will refrain from buying up overripe tomatoes and ancient eggs. I do not think my pachydermic steed would care for that reception, and I might lose my dignity and fall off." His only venture as a producer in the show business was at the Nursing Fête on the Village Green, where for the past two summers his snake show was one of the big attractions. He had a collection of king- snakes, rattlers and cobras sent from a Texas snake farm for his tent show. Its fascination was not merely because of the snakes; it was Mr. Fenno himself, billed as the Snake King, showing flinching visitors how easily a poisonous snake was handled by practised hands. Last summer he was bitten by one of his rat- tlers after the performance; he coolly applied first aid himself and was not poisoned. After the fête he presented the snakes to the Bronx Zoo. Snakes for the fête next week had already been ordered from Texas, and Mr. Fenno had promised other exhibits as well for his side show. Many Falmouth residents will miss the unobtrusive kindnesses and friendly gestures which marked Mr. Fenno's residence here. There are store employees who will miss an annual summer evening picnic on the Fenno beach, when a generous part of the refreshments were furnished by a cordial host. The police department recognized his friendship when he was made an honorary member three years ago. Pres- entation of a special gold police badge with his initials was made in a way that pleased him most, with the flavor of a practical joke: Mr. Fenno was "arrested" one autumn evening and brought to the police station where the badge was presented. "Mr. Fenno's kindnesses to the police department are well known," said The Enterprise in reporting the presentation, "and are appreciated by the department."
Such was the same colorful, whimsical side of the "Brad" Fenno we knew in our college days, finding fuller and more diverting expression throughout his later years. But there was a far more profound, more serious side to his character and to his many public- spirited activities which the record of these later years bears witness to.
[ 22 ]
Forty-Fifth Anniversary Report
Long a member of the Boston real estate firm of R. M. Bradley and Company, he gave greatly and whole-heartedly of his time as well to charitable and prison-reform philanthropies. In addition to his serving on the boards of directors of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Y. M. C. A., City Episcopal Mission, Massachusetts Prison Association, and Northeastern College, he also conducted field work for the Associated Charities, and its later de- velopment, the Family Welfare Society. Then too, after it had been taken over by the State, he became a member of the Volunteer Cavalry, and during the First World War was in charge of the Red Cross Convalescent House at Camp Devens Base Hospital, working through the influenza epidemic until, himself a victim of the disease, he was forced to retire. Indeed, Red Cross work claimed much of his interest, especially that branch of it known as Water First Aid and Life Saving, to which he was appointed New England Director, at the same time creating and establishing the Life Saving Corps in Boston. In recent years he devoted much of his attention to paroled and discharged prisoners - aiding in their rehabilitation, and giving generously of his advice, counsel and aid. He was un- married. A sister, Mrs. Arthur W. Bell, and a brother, our above- named classmate, Edward Nicoll Fenno, Jr., both of Boston, survive him.
All the world 's a stage And one man in his time plays many parts . .
and "Brad" Fenno was ever a stout-hearted and a conscientious player. His rôles, now serious, now gay, were played in an ever kindly tempo, and he gave to them the best that he possessed - until the final curtain was lowered, and the show passed on.
A little work, a little play
To keep us going - and so good day! R. L. S. and H. T. N.
WILLIAM BALDWYN FLETCHER died at San Leandro, Calif- ornia, October 25, 1937. He left Harvard at the end of his fresh- man year and after completing his work for a degree at Leland
[ 23 ]
Harvard Class of Ninety-Seven
Stanford, Jr., University, became a reporter on the San Francisco Call.
Born in Indianapolis, the son of William B. and Agnes (O'Brien) Fletcher, he returned to his native town, where he was until recently connected with the Fletcher American National Bank.
CAPTAIN JOSEPH FYFFE (S.C.) U.S.N., retired, who died sud- denly in Chicago on January 13, 1941, was well known in Boston. His father, the late Rear Admiral Joseph Fyffe, had served several tours of duty in Boston, retiring as Commandant of the Boston Navy Yard in 1896. Captain Fyffe was educated in the Boston Latin School, the Newton High School and Harvard College and went direct from college to the Navy Pay Corps (now the Supply Corps) on appointment by President Cleveland in 1896. He retired in 1938.
He served in Cuban waters throughout the Spanish-American War and received the Sampson and Spanish War medals. During the first part of this country's participation in the first World War, he served afloat as Fleet Paymaster of the Pacific Fleet. Later, in New York, he was charged with responsibility for the supply and "turn arounds" of cargo ships carrying supplies to Europe from that port.
In the early 1920's, Captain Fyffe collaborated with others at the Navy Supply Depot, South Brooklyn, New York, in modernizing the "paper work" of the Supply Departments of the Navy's shore establishments and devising a modern system of inventory control. He later installed the new methods at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, the New York Navy Yard and the Operating Base at San Diego, which was his last active duty. Most of the recent expansion of the supply facilities at San Diego either was carried out under Captain Fyffe's supervision or was initiated by him. Captain Fyffe's World War decorations were the Navy Cross, for distinguished service as Pacific Fleet Paymaster, and the Victory Medal with Patrol Clasp.
In 1901 he married Katharine Ellen Bacon, who died in 1914. In 1915 he married Anne Lockwood, a distant cousin, who now resides
[24 ]
Forty-Fifth Anniversary Report
in New York. A son, Joseph Bacon Fyffe, and three grandchildren, live in Wellesley, and a sister, Elizabeth Fyffe, lives in Newton.
Fyffe was at heart an essentially bookish man, delighting in stylis- tic authors such as George Meredith, and he was elaborately con- versant with the history of British India. Oddly enough he was destined for a career of intense and responsible action in a period of war, and made a very helpful contribution as a supply officer. Un- failingly individual, he colored his conversation with a quaint and amusing humor which did not wholly conceal the high intensity of a will that carried him forward for more than sixty-seven years. W. L. G.
IN the death of FREDERICK PARKER GAY, the Class has lost one of its truly eminent members - a reserved and quiet man widely known in the field of medical science though probably a relative stranger to a very large number of his classmates. He was born in Boston on July 22, 1874, and prepared for college at the Boston Latin School. Of slender build and quiet, studious disposition he devoted himself to his studies and engaged in none of the usual athletic and but few social activities. A pipe and a good book were his most prized companions. He paid special attention to the sci- ences both physical and biological, received honorable mention in Italian and Spanish and was awarded a Disquisition at Commence- ment which, however, he did not compete for.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.