Class Note 1942
Issue
January-February 2022
I have been soliciting memories from the dwindling, though no less spritely, class of ’42. My question is “How or why did you choose Dartmouth, and did it meet your expectations?” Most recently Tom Harriman wrote.
“Very close friends of my dad were Bert and Chet Gale, who described the distance from fleshpots of Boston and New York and the healthy mountain air of New Hampshire. [I was also drawn by the] young lovelies at Smith and half a dozen women’s colleges.
“We students did not let family fame or finance be a criterion for citizen value, but merited interest and sociability. As a freshman of 16, I had no social development. That changed when I served as president of Theta Delta Chi and goalie of the freshman soccer team. Not concerned about national politics, I did not get turned into a leftist by the faculty—in fact, I was mostly nonpartisan.
“Scholastically, I was brought up very quickly by my freshman English professor, who taught us to describe concretely and realistically in our expository writing and stay away from overused expressions such as ‘in one fell swoop.’ He helped me turn my first C into a routine A. The freshman mathematics professor, Dr. Brown, got me thoroughly in love with analytical geometry, then calculus and integrals.
“Dartmouth’s fraternity life presented me with the challenge of fighting anti-Semitism—the beginning of many fights—which we won! The Theta Delta Chi national ordered that no Chinese, Blacks, or Jewish students may be pledged. At that time, I believe that our chapters of Beta and Theta Delta Chi were the only ones to refuse to honor that rule.
“I had been planning to become an international investment banker, but Hitler put a stop to that—with these eyes, I would have been drafted as a clerk in Washington, D.C.! Dartmouth helped me change courses in order to enroll in aeronautical engineering for a master’s. With Dartmouth and an MIT degree, I was able to develop leadership and technology skills. As a senior VP 40 years later, I got my corporation acquired as a liquidity event for twice the market capital.”
—Joanna Caproni, 370 East 76 St., Apt. A 406, New York, NY 10021; caproni@aol.com
“Very close friends of my dad were Bert and Chet Gale, who described the distance from fleshpots of Boston and New York and the healthy mountain air of New Hampshire. [I was also drawn by the] young lovelies at Smith and half a dozen women’s colleges.
“We students did not let family fame or finance be a criterion for citizen value, but merited interest and sociability. As a freshman of 16, I had no social development. That changed when I served as president of Theta Delta Chi and goalie of the freshman soccer team. Not concerned about national politics, I did not get turned into a leftist by the faculty—in fact, I was mostly nonpartisan.
“Scholastically, I was brought up very quickly by my freshman English professor, who taught us to describe concretely and realistically in our expository writing and stay away from overused expressions such as ‘in one fell swoop.’ He helped me turn my first C into a routine A. The freshman mathematics professor, Dr. Brown, got me thoroughly in love with analytical geometry, then calculus and integrals.
“Dartmouth’s fraternity life presented me with the challenge of fighting anti-Semitism—the beginning of many fights—which we won! The Theta Delta Chi national ordered that no Chinese, Blacks, or Jewish students may be pledged. At that time, I believe that our chapters of Beta and Theta Delta Chi were the only ones to refuse to honor that rule.
“I had been planning to become an international investment banker, but Hitler put a stop to that—with these eyes, I would have been drafted as a clerk in Washington, D.C.! Dartmouth helped me change courses in order to enroll in aeronautical engineering for a master’s. With Dartmouth and an MIT degree, I was able to develop leadership and technology skills. As a senior VP 40 years later, I got my corporation acquired as a liquidity event for twice the market capital.”
—Joanna Caproni, 370 East 76 St., Apt. A 406, New York, NY 10021; caproni@aol.com