Class Note 1947
Issue
July-August 2021
Greetings to the great class of 1947. I received a phone call from George Cohn relating to a back injury with a broken bone experienced from a fall. He went to a Boston hospital, then to one in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, from where he called. He sounded to be in good spirits as he doesn’t have far to go to get home.
I was going through old files passed on to me by John Trethaway having to do with the days of the V-12 at Dartmouth during WW II. There I found a letter from Alan Bildner to Ed Grady, our class newsletter editor in the 1990s. In it he describes a little-known event: It seems Smith College had a U.S. Navy Women’s Reserve officer training unit and the commandants of both units got together and arranged for 30 women to periodically socialize with 30 V-12 seamen for the day. They would arrive by bus to the front of the Hanover Inn, be met by officers who would line them up by height as a date for the day! Al says he remembers this and makes it clear he was not willing to spend the day with an unknown date, especially with that criteria. By the way, I’m a big fan of PBS Newshour with Judy Woodruff and I took note that Alan’s son, Jim ’75, and his wife, Nancy, help support the program. Alan and Joan would be more than pleased.
I received a call from Hardy Hendren and his wife, Eleanor, just checking in, which I thoroughly appreciate. Like almost everybody else, they’re pretty much housebound, except that they have the interesting experience of watching their guests feed themselves on the back lawn. The geese from Duxbury Bay, Massachusetts, have found a home, though I suspect human help in the food supply might have helped.
According to the freshman Green Book, Hardy is one of 185 civilians who weren’t available for the draft as they were still 17. Once you hit the magic number, you were gone! In Hardy’s case he became a Navy pilot, and images of all the planes he flew are on display in his den.
We are saddened to report the deaths of Richard C. Gerrold of Lexington, Massachusetts, on September 5, 2019; James McHale of East Hartford, Connecticut, on September 26, 2020; and Henry J. Brezinski of Berne, New York, on January 7.
—Joe Hayes, P.O. Box 57, Rye Beach, NH 03871; (603) 964-6503; jhayes697@yahoo.com
I was going through old files passed on to me by John Trethaway having to do with the days of the V-12 at Dartmouth during WW II. There I found a letter from Alan Bildner to Ed Grady, our class newsletter editor in the 1990s. In it he describes a little-known event: It seems Smith College had a U.S. Navy Women’s Reserve officer training unit and the commandants of both units got together and arranged for 30 women to periodically socialize with 30 V-12 seamen for the day. They would arrive by bus to the front of the Hanover Inn, be met by officers who would line them up by height as a date for the day! Al says he remembers this and makes it clear he was not willing to spend the day with an unknown date, especially with that criteria. By the way, I’m a big fan of PBS Newshour with Judy Woodruff and I took note that Alan’s son, Jim ’75, and his wife, Nancy, help support the program. Alan and Joan would be more than pleased.
I received a call from Hardy Hendren and his wife, Eleanor, just checking in, which I thoroughly appreciate. Like almost everybody else, they’re pretty much housebound, except that they have the interesting experience of watching their guests feed themselves on the back lawn. The geese from Duxbury Bay, Massachusetts, have found a home, though I suspect human help in the food supply might have helped.
According to the freshman Green Book, Hardy is one of 185 civilians who weren’t available for the draft as they were still 17. Once you hit the magic number, you were gone! In Hardy’s case he became a Navy pilot, and images of all the planes he flew are on display in his den.
We are saddened to report the deaths of Richard C. Gerrold of Lexington, Massachusetts, on September 5, 2019; James McHale of East Hartford, Connecticut, on September 26, 2020; and Henry J. Brezinski of Berne, New York, on January 7.
—Joe Hayes, P.O. Box 57, Rye Beach, NH 03871; (603) 964-6503; jhayes697@yahoo.com