Charles Major came to Dartmouth during World War II in the Navy V-5 program, went to Notre Dame Midshipman School under V-12, spent 18 months on destroyers off the China coast, came back to Dartmouth and graduated in February 1948. He entered the University of Tennessee (UT) for his master’s of science, was recalled to the Navy in 1951 and put in two more years of sea duty on a destroyer in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. He married Mary Henderson, a geneticist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and his former laboratory partner at UT. He returned to UT for a Ph.D. in physiology.


Charles says, “My roommates will be astounded to know I added six more semesters of biochemistry after my less-than-sterling Dartmouth organic record.” He taught at Rochester Medical School for two years and then went to the University of Maine, where he taught physiology, pharmacology and drug uses and abuse for the next 35 years until his retirement. He and Mary, who died two years ago, had three children and there are numerous grand- and great-grandchildren. He was active politically and a foot soldier in national and state elections. He organized the faculty union statewide in the Maine system and was active in the civil rights movement in Tennessee when a graduate student. He was a courtesy driver for the Martin Luther King Jr. funeral. His daughter, with whom he now lives, caught him shoveling snow off his roof and the family decided it was time for him to give up independent living. Charles says he is in reasonable health and recently took a river cruise from Vienna to Amsterdam. As he’s essentially deaf, to contact him I suggest using his email, major_acadia@yahoo.com.


Tad Comstock says he and Georgie enjoy day trips and boating at their summer cottage at Bow Lake, New Hampshire. He sent a picture of their first homemade Nantucket reed basket. Looks great. He led the Gaspee Day parade in Warwick, Rhode Island, in honor of a pre-Revolutionary War event. He says, “We wish we were able to attend the mini-reunions. They were always good times.”


—Dave Kurr, 4281 Indian Field Road, Clinton, NY 13323; (315) 853-3582; djkurr@verizon.net