USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard class of 1925 : decennial report > Part 2
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The United States then being engaged in difficulty with Mexico, the regiment George was in was sent into Mexico under General Pershing. George engaged in several skirmishes along the Mexican border. After he had been in service about nine months he was thrown from his horse and his leg was badly injured. For three months he lay in the hospital, hovering between life and death, and his indomitable will is shown by the fact that despite his illness he never apprised the members of his family of his condition. In November, 1917, one year after his enlistment, he was honorably discharged because of his injuries and returned to his home in Vine- land, New Jersey.
After his return home George resumed his studies in the Vine- land High School. Out of forty competing schoolmates he was selected as a four-minute speaker to assist in numerous war drives during 1918. Upon graduation from High School in 1920 he en- tered George Washington University. His original intention was to study medicine, but he soon changed his plans and concluded to devote his time to literary work. He transferred to Harvard as a sophomore in 1922 and received his A.B. degree in February, 1925, after two and one-half years in Cambridge.
Following graduation George entered the real estate business in Brigantine Beach, a development near Atlantic City, New Jersey.
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IN MEMORIAM
After a short time the wanderlust seized him, however, and he set out upon a long series of travels in quest of material for projected literary work. His method of travel was every way imaginable. He never took any funds from home. It was his habit to work for a short time at a place and then move on without any preconceived itinerary. The fall of 1925 he was thus working with a state road gang in Illinois. After a flying visit home in 1926 he spent some time in Colorado and then set out on his wanderings which took him through forty-six states before 1927. In September of the latter year he returned home somewhat exhausted, but giving no indication of ill-health. After two or three weeks the strain that he had undergone and the hardships that he had endured in his travels led to a physical breakdown. After an illness of about three weeks he died of pneumonia on October 15.
George was unostentatious. He was opposed to pomp or cere- mony, regarding it as mere hypocrisy. While not of the type to make friends by flattery, he had a number of sincere intimates and was held in high regard by all who knew him. He confided in but few and his next move was seldom known by his closest friends. At his death he was sincerely mourned by all who knew him and his funeral was one of the largest ever held in Vineland.
FRANK KOTOK.
Stephen Van Praag Lee
S TEPHEN VAN PRAAG LEE was born at Yonkers, New York, No- vember 2, 1904. His father was Louis Franklin Lee; his mother's maiden name was Selma Van Praag. He attended the Horace Mann School in New York from the kindergarten through the preparatory grades and matriculated at Brown University in 1921. In the fall of 1923 he transferred to Harvard and was graduated as a regular member of our class. During his senior year he was a member of the track squad.
Late in 1925 Lee was discovered to be suffering from tuberculosis.
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HARVARD 1925 · FOURTH REPORT
He moved to Colorado Springs early in 1926 and to California a year later. On April 27, 1931, he died at San Marino, California.
During his illness, Stephen Lee became interested in book collect- ing. His knowledge and judgment of fine and rare books made him known to book collectors and dealers throughout the United States and Europe. His enthusiasm and love for his subject was second only to his love of people. His patience, sympathy, and under- standing grew even in illness. The beauty and cheer of his life could be broken only by death. All those who knew him still linger in memory. They are bound in the endless friendship created by his love. His art was to create a world, surrounding him like an aura, in which nothing ugly could exist.
E. L. '30
James Jay Mapes
TAMES JAY MAPES, the son of Victor and Anna Louise (Horke) Mapes was born October 3, 1902, at New Rochelle, New York. His father is well known as a playwright, and a great-aunt, Mary Mapes Dodge, is remembered as the author of "Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates."
Mapes entered the class of 1925 from the Santa Barbara School. He immediately became active in college affairs, trying out for football manager at the beginning of his freshman year. While never attaining an official position in this connection, he became well known and popular with his class, and formed many of the friend- ships which later became so firm. He also tried out for the Uni- versity hockey managership, which eventually was won by his close friend John Hooker. In his sophomore year he was elected to the Porcellian Club.
Aside from his personal talents his particular abilities lay in golf and riding, in both of which he was extremely proficient. He played on the University golf team, and surely would have ex- celled in this game in later life. Fox-hunting was a favorite sport
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IN MEMORIAM
of his, and often he rode with the Myopia and other hunts near Boston. We like to think of him in these accomplishments, but we also affectionately recall his mother's and father's house on Chest- nut 'Street where his many friends were so often and cordially entertained. Few of us could forget this hospitality which Jim and Mr. and Mrs. Mapes extended to us.
In June of our graduation year he went abroad with his family. In the first week of July he arrived in Paris from London, taking the channel boat. It was cold, rainy weather, and when a few of us dined with him that night he complained of a cold. He left early, and the next day we learned he had developed pneumonia. On August 9, 1925, he died at the American Hospital in Paris. We had lost not only a very close friend but one who would have gone far in any walk of life he had chosen.
L. O. V. M.
Charles Marx, Jr.
C HARLES MARX, JR. was born in New York City, April 19, 1903, the son of Charles and Mellie (Mayer) Marx. He prepared for college at the Horace Mann School. He spent his first college year at the University of Virginia. Transferring to Harvard the next year, he joined the class of 1925, in which he ranked as a superior student. He was a member of the track squad for the year 1922-23 and played in the Instrumental Clubs 1923-24. He graduated from Harvard in 1925 with an S.B. degree, cum laude.
His interest in book collecting and his love of literature, which he had developed as an undergraduate, continued. He added ex- tensively to his library, specializing in books on printing and in rare editions. After a year in the factoring business he became associated with the Pynson Printers. He was very happy in this type of work.
His professors, friends and associates acknowledged his abilities which gave promise of a life of real achievement. After his death, February 5, 1927, resulting from a sudden attack of appendicitis,
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HARVARD 1925 · FOURTH REPORT
a group of friends contributed to a fund in his memory, with which have been purchased art journals now in the Fogg Museum library. These journals contain a book plate bearing his name.
It is always difficult to reconcile the loss of one who, at the threshold of life, has much to contribute. To be stricken down as was Charles Marx is a deprivation not alone to his family, but to his many friends.
P. E.
Charles Coffin Mason
C HARLES COFFIN MASON was the son of Francis Payne Mason and Erma (Coffin) Mason, and was born in Chicago, Illinois, June II, 1903. Due to the fact that his paternal grandfather was American Consul-General in Berlin and Paris, he was brought up in the French language to the age of six and crossed the ocean many times. Because of his travels his early education was some- what disjointed, and his later schooling was further interrupted by the War. At the age of fifteen he joined the Red Cross. He saw service in France and Italy, and returned to the United States in July, 1919, with the rank of sergeant major.
After Mason's return he prepared for Harvard at the Berkshire School. While at the University he went out for Freshman football and took part in several other sports, but his chief interest was the Gun Club, of which he served as president in 1924-25. He placed third in the Intercollegiate Rifle Meet of 1924. He was also a mem- ber of K Company of the Seventh Regiment, New York City.
After graduation with his class Mason went to New York and there entered the service of the Edison Company. He remained with them until the winter of 1930 when he resigned to take a trip around the world. Upon his return he undertook fiction writing and had several stories published. He was beginning to make a name for himself when his death occurred at Hadley, Massachusetts, on August 13, 1931. He is survived by his mother, and a brother.
F. VAN W. MASON, '24
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IN MEMORIAM
Claud Nicholls
C LAUD NICHOLLS was the oldest member of the Class of 1925 and entered Harvard after a more varied experience than most of his classmates. He was born December 25, 1889, at Grimsby, England, the son of the Reverend Sampson and Sarah Louisa (Donogue) Nicholls. He received his early schooling in Harwichport, Massachusetts, and at Arms Academy, Shelburne Falls, and Burdette Business College, Boston. From 1910 to 1917 he was employed as a bookkeeper with a firm of New England mill agents.
Four days before the United States entered the World War Nicholls enlisted in Troop A, Ist Separate Squadron Cavalry, Mas- sachusetts National Guard. This troop, known as the "National Lancers," is the organization which for many years has served as the bodyguard of Massachusetts governors at Harvard Commence- ments. In August 1917, Troop A became Company A of the 102nd Machine Gun Battalion, 26th Division, American Expeditionary Force. Nicholls left for France with the reorganized battalion on Sep- tember 22, 1917, and served continuously overseas until April 6, 1919. He participated in action at Chemin-des-Dames, Seicheprey, the Aisne-Marne Defensive, Aisne-Marne Offensive, Marcheville, and the Meuse-Argonne. He was once wounded - during the Aisne-Marne Offensive in Trugny Woods, near Chateau Thierry. He received his discharge April 29, 1919, at Camp Devens.
After the war, Nicholls returned for two years to Lockwood, Greene & Company, where he held the position of auditor in the traffic department. In 1921 he decided to resume his studies and, under the guidance of the Federal Board for Vocational Training, entered Harvard as a special student in arts and sciences. His work was so creditable that in the following year he was transferred to the College as a regular sophomore. Through most of his col- lege career he was forced to divide his energies between studies and outside work, averaging during one year, at least, as much as six hours of work daily in the traffic department of Lockwood, Greene & Company. The death of his father midway through
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HARVARD 1925 · FOURTH REPORT
Nicholls' second year in Cambridge also brought added burdens to the younger man's shoulders. But his characteristic determina- tion carried him through all these difficulties with credit.
After graduation with our class, Nicholls worked for a year as salesman for C. A. Vinal & Company of Boston, textile agents; then for a short time as cashier of the General Motors Truck Com- pany of East Hartford, Connecticut. In 1927 he entered into a partnership in Boston under the firm name of Nicholls and Dixey, representing as sales agents three small textile mills. At the time of our Sexennial he reported that conditions were so quiet in the textile field that he was planning to turn his efforts elsewhere.
Nicholls died December 29, 1933, in Quincy, Massachusetts. Ac- quaintances report that at the time of his death he was an accountant attached to the office of the State Bank Examiner. He is survived by his wife, who was Miss Muriel Louise Murray, and by four children, Adelaide Leola, Feodore Murial, Claud, and Benjamin Williams.
Jacob Vincent Nissenson
TACOB VINCENT NISSENSON's name was the first to be listed in the Class necrology. Death came to him as the result of a drown- ing accident on August 16, 1922, at Square Lake, St. Faustin, Quebec. He had been spending the vacation following our Freshman year in the Laurentian Mountains and, on his return trip, had decided to stop off with friends. An hour after his arrival the party went in swimming. Nissenson himself had been in the water only two or three minutes when he suddenly sank from view. It was not until the next day that his body was recovered.
Nissenson was born September 12, 1904, at Montreal, Quebec, the son of Louis and Bella (Rother) Nissenson. He entered Har- vard from the Montreal High School and lived quietly during our Freshman year at a private house on Wendell Street, taking little part in Class activities. Classmates who had an opportunity to become acquainted with him during his brief time at Cambridge
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IN MEMORIAM
will recall his name with regret that a life which promised much should have been cut off so suddenly.
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Dexter Selden Paine
D EXTER SELDEN PAINE was born at Brookline, June 23, 1902, the son of William Dexter and Margaret Carey Paine. He received his early education in the Brookline public schools and at the Sanford School, Redding Ridge, Connecticut, and finished his preparation at the Stone School in Boston.
At Harvard much of Paine's activities centered around the Glee Club, of which he was assistant manager from September to Decem- ber, 1923, and manager from that time until June, 1925. Not a little of the success of the Club during this period was due to his devoted, energetic, and capable efforts on its behalf. While in college he was also a member of the Pierian Sodality, the Styx Club, and the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.
Immediately after graduation Paine joined the managerial staff of Symphony Hall, remaining there for two years. In 1927 he was appointed assistant to the cruise manager of Raymond & Whit- comb Company. In the following year he left to join the staff of the Copley-Plaza Hotel Corporation. In 1930 he entered upon preparation for a career for which he was particularly well adapted by ability and personality, that of helpful work among prisoners in penal institutions. To this end he enrolled in the Episcopal Theological School and combined his studies there with graduate work in sociology.
In June, 1931, he married Anna Hayden Dennen of Cambridge. A son, William Dexter, 2d, was born May 5, 1932.
While studying at the Theological School, Paine served as as- sistant to the Episcopal chaplain at the State Prison at Charlestown, at the same time carrying out duties at the prison colony at Nor- folk. In September, 1932, he was appointed chaplain. His death
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HARVARD 1925 . FOURTH REPORT
by accident on November 3 of that same year cut short a record not only of substantial accomplishments in his chosen work but of even greater promise of achievements in the future.
D. V. B.
John Randolph Robinson
JOHN RANDOLPH ROBINSON, the son of John Bryan and Marion (O'Neill) Robinson, was born October 14, 1904, in Paris, France. He received his early education in French, Swiss, and English schools. In 1919 he enrolled in the fifth form of St. George's School, Newport, Rhode Island and two years later entered Harvard.
Robinson became a member of the United States foreign service in 1927, and served as vice-consul in Calcutta, Madras, and Nice. In 1929 he was transferred to the consulate at Naples. On Sep- tember 1, 1930, while on a visit to Capri, he was fatally injured as a result of a fall from a balcony of the Hotel Quisisana where he had moved his mattress in search of cooler air. He died the following morning.
"In college," writes J. D. L., "Robinson played leading parts in many of Le Cercle Français productions and displayed not only an amazing command of the French language but also a real talent for histrionics. There seems little doubt but that, had he wished, he could have had a successful career on the stage or on the screen, either in this country or in France. He spoke French so well that he could easily pass as a Frenchman. He was rather more mature and sophisticated than most of his classmates and combined a taste for life's amenities with a liking for good literature, good works of art, and good talk. While he knew relatively few people at Harvard, he had a wide acquaintanceship outside college circles, and his few close friends were devoted to him. They found him always a good company, imaginative, humorous, and intelligent. He had barely begun to adjust himself to life when he left it."
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IN MEMORIAM
Thomas Arnold Barrett Scudder
T HOMAS ARNOLD BARRETT SCUDDER was the son of John Arnold and Alice (Barrett) Scudder. He was born October 26, 1901, at Chicago, Illinois, and prepared for Harvard at the Santa Barbara School in California. Scudder remained in College two and one- half years. As an undergraduate he was a member of his Fresh- man track squad, and he belonged to the Iroquois, Stylus, and Fly Clubs, and to the Hasty Pudding Club - Institute of 1770.
Following graduation, Scudder traveled for some time on the Continent and in Morocco. For a time he tried his hand at paint- ing among the mountains of the American Southwest. His principal hobby for several years was the training of dogs.
On December 27, 1930, while visiting a farm where he was boarding some of his dogs, Scudder intervened to protect his kennel- man and the latter's wife from the assaults of a lunatic. He him- self was shot and fatally injured. He died on January II, 1931, at St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago.
"All of us will remember him," writes J. H. R., 3d., "with the utmost affection. His great, rugged exterior which was in such contrast with his soft, deep, and marvelously modulated speaking voice; his passion for the unusual and his complete unawareness of conventions; his physical strength and his incomparable sense of humor made him an astounding and lovable character, whom it was a privilege to have known."
John Loftus Scully
TOHN LOFTUS SCULLY was the son of John Loftus and Mary
Elizabeth (Tyson) Scully. He was born March 8, 1903, at Savannah, Georgia, and died September 3, 1924 -just before the opening of our Senior year - at New York City. During his two and one-half years in Cambridge, Scully took part in a number of extra-curricular activities, was a member of our Freshman basket-
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HARVARD 1925 · FOURTH REPORT
ball team, played on the Freshman tennis squad and later on the University basketball squad, and shared in social service work under the auspices of the Phillips Brooks House.
"John Loftus Scully," writes Dr. Lawrence T. Cole, headmaster of Trinity School, "was a student in Trinity from 1912 to 1921, when he graduated, having been given, on the vote of the masters of the school, the McVickar Prize for general excellence during his school course, and also, by vote of the boys of the school, awarded the honor of having his name engraved on the Holden Cup as the boy who had done most for athletics during his Senior year. These awards signify the high esteem in which he was held, not only by his instructors but by his fellows as well. During the nine years he was in the school, he proved himself to be of more than ordinary in- tellectual capacity - honest, reliable, responsible, and loyal - a boy who could be depended upon to do the right thing in any emergency."
Jim Chapman Sherman
J
IM CHAPMAN SHERMAN was born July 12, 1904, at Augusta, Georgia, the son of Thomas Holliman and Sarah (Morris) Sher- man. He received his early education at the Academy of Richmond County in Augusta, where he attained the highest honors. During his three years as an upperclassman at Harvard he held successively the Rumrill Scholarship, the Sewell Scholarship, and the Bigelow Scholarship, and was graduated with distinction.
His college years were marked also by his extra-curricular activi- ties. He was a member of his Freshman lacrosse team and played on the University lacrosse squad the following year. He had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances.
Sherman early acquired an absorbing interest in architecture. In college he specialized in Fine Arts, and he had already become an efficient mathematician. As a consequence he was especially well adapted for a post-graduate course at the Architectural School, where he received the degree of Master in Architecture in 1929.
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IN MEMORIAM
After an interlude of practice in Boston, he returned to Augusta where he was associated with a leading firm of architects, Scroggs & Ewing, of which he, in time, became a member. He was con- sidered one of the South's most promising young architects, when he died suddenly on September 7, 1934, mourned by his family, his fellow townsmen, and his classmates, to whom he had endeared himself by his qualities as a man and a friend. Sherman was un- married. He is survived by his mother and father and two brothers, Adrian B. and Ernest L. Sherman, of Augusta.
W. A. G.
William Denison Sleeper
W ILLIAM DENISON SLEEPER, son of Henry Dike and Mary Peet Sleeper, was born January 8, 1904, in Hartford, Connecticut. His youth was passed and early schooling had in Northampton, Massachusetts, where his father was a member of the faculty of Smith College. Both his grandfathers were clergymen, and his great-grandfather was a founder of Beloit College in Wisconsin.
Preparatory to entering Harvard, Bill attended Worcester Acad- emy, where he graduated at the head of his class in 1921. In college he concentrated in the Division of History, Government and Economics, and after graduation attended the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. He served in both business school years as an associate editor of the Business Review. At an early age and throughout his school work, Bill showed an unusual interest and exceptional proficiency in mathematics, and his principal work in the business school was in the field of statistics and finance. Upon graduation from that school he chose a position with Royal Baking Powder Company, serving first as treasurer of a subsidiary company in Detroit, and later in the office of the Company in New York City, being there advanced rapidly to a position of great re- sponsibility.
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HARVARD 1925 · FOURTH REPORT
While his scholastic interests were intense and consuming, he found both time and energy to pursue a great variety of other interests and was an exceptionally well-informed and stimulating person. He participated in athletics in Worcester and at Harvard. His vacations were spent on Lake Champlain, where he was an enthusiastic companion and leader in swimming, canoeing, mountain- climbing, and other out-of-door sports.
Bill possessed an unusually broad, human and refreshing outlook on life, had a fine and efficient mind, and was a courageous and independent thinker. He was devoted to his family and loyal to his friends, and his ideals were the highest.
After a very short illness, Bill died of pneumonia, January 20, 1930, in New York City.
A. W. P.
Frank DeLarme Smith, Jr.
F RANK DELARME SMITH, JR., was the son of Frank DeLarme and Anna Ruth (King) Smith. He was born March 27, 1903, at Washington, District of Columbia, and died in the same city, April 13, 1933. He prepared for Harvard at the Central High School in Washington and as an undergraduate was registered in the Harvard Engineering School. During his freshman year he held the scholarship of the Harvard Club of the District of Columbia.
In college his field of specialization was mechanical engineering. Following graduation he was employed for some time with the A. C. Spark Plug Company in Flint, Michigan. He then entered the United States Patent Office as examiner, a position he retained until his death. In June, 1931, he was admitted to the bars of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia and of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. The following June he received his LL.B. degree from George Washington University. He had taken out several patents himself on electrical and mechanical de- vices.
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IN MEMORIAM
On October 18, 1927, he had married Miss Helen B. Linkhart at Washington. His wife, as well as his parents and brothers and sisters, survived him. He left many devoted friends among his classmates and among his Kappa Sigma fraternity brothers, who will remember him for his unswerving loyalty, for his quietly expressed and well-balanced judgment, and for his extraordinary abilities in his chosen field.
F. I. S.
Peter Van Der Meulen Smith
P ETER VAN DER MUELEN SMITH, son of Fred Stevens and Edith Arnold (Wills) Smith, was born at West Hartford, Connecti- cut on December 9, 1902. He prepared for college at Milton Acad- emy, and was graduated from Harvard on Commencement Day, 1925, with honors in the fine arts. Following one year of gradu- ate study at the Harvard Architectural School, he worked for a year in the office of Stone & Webster. In the autumn of 1927 he took up study in Paris with the architect Lurçat and was working with him on the development of problems of the ferro-concrete style in Continental architecture at the time of his sudden death from a heart attack, November 17, 1928.
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