A warm welcome to you all. This annual reception is something we do to celebrate
the wonderful, old, deep, and vitalizing relationship St. Lawrence has
with the community in which we live. Though this reception is something
of a tradition, three years ago John Clark ‘69 brought a terrific
new idea to it—the idea that we should use this special time together
to identify and celebrate outstanding St. Lawrence alumni with strong connections
to this village, town, and area of the North Country.
The picture boards you see around the room today are John’s creations.
The boards from 1999 and 2000 are on display to remind us of the people we
have recognized in those years. The new ones for this year—recognizing
Charles Sheard 1903, Ernest Leffert Robinson 1911, George Robert Hardie 1890,
Dorothy Cleaveland Salisbury 1912, and Elinor White Frost 1895—are
marked with a scarlet and brown bow. I hope you’ve had a chance to
read about them, or if you haven’t, that you will take the time before
leaving here today. All of them should make us proud. I’d like to thank
John both for his idea and for the research and presentation he has accomplished.
I’d also like to recognize several others. You met my wife Ann on the
way in, I’m sure. Also with us today are Susan Johnson, ’66,
trustee of the University; Bob Wells, emeritus Professor of Government and
Canton’s new mayor; Katrina Jacobson, our new Superintendent of Schools;
and finally, The Trillium String Trio—Agnes McCarthy, John Jadlos,
and Christian Hosmer—who are providing the beautiful music you are
hearing today.
It is not just this celebration of a new group of outstanding Canton Laurentians,
all graduates from around the turn of the century, that brings my focus back
toward that period in our history. A couple of weeks ago, Michael Farley
of our Music Department conducted in concert a marvelously diverse ensemble,
in which I has able to participate, playing music from the Civil War period
up through the end of the century. For the players in rehearsal throughout
the fall, and for the audience, he situated each piece in its historical
context. We played “Tippecanoe Quickstep March,” written in 1840
and surely something army bands would have played in the Civil War. “Tenting
Tonight” formed the musical backdrop to a reading of several moving
letters home from Canton-area Civil War soldiers. “Hard Times Come
Again no More,” a haunting ballad also from that period was sung beautifully
by a quartet of St. Lawrence students. The music, and the North Country connections
drew us back in time in the way John Clark’s historical work draws
us back—college and community—in time today.
It was also just over 100 years ago that Irving Bacheller 1882 published
the novel after which this room is named—Eben Holden. You may not know
this, but North Country Public Radio is preparing a reading of Eben Holden
to be broadcast soon. Listen to it. I found out when they asked me to read
some sections for the performance. It too was set during the Civil War, and
I had forgotten some of the wonderful sections involving what had to have
been Canton and St. Lawrence.
In Chapter 26 Bill, the lead character and narrator describes a hazing incident
where he and his fellow freshmen wore stove-pipe hats, supposedly for head
protection, in an encounter with members of the sophomore class. Common in
my time as a student here in the early 1960’s, such incidents are thankfully
rarer today. He says:
Of the total inefficiency of the stove-pipe hat as an article of armour,
I have never had the slightest doubt since then. There was a great flash
and rattle of canes. Then the air was full of us. In the heat of it all prudence
went to the winds. We hit out right and left, on both sides, smashing hats
and bruising heads and hands. The canes went down in a jiffy and then we
closed with each other hip and thigh. Collars were ripped off, coats were
torn, shirts were gory from the blood of noses, and in this condition the
most of us were rolling and tumbling on the ground. I had flung a man, heavily,
and broke away and was tackling another when I heard a hush in the tumult
and then the voice of the president. He stood on the high steps, his grey
head bare, his right hand lifted. It must have looked like carnage from where
he stood.
“Young gentlemen!” he called. “Cease, I command you. If we
cannot get along without this thing we will shut up shop.”
Sounds just like me, right?
Later in that chapter there is also a touching scene of young college love.
Hope, Bill’s girlfriend, is about to head off to New York to continue
her studies.
We had the parlour to ourselves the evening
before she went away, and I read her a little love tale I had
written especially for that occasion. It gave us some chance
to discuss the absorbing and forbidden topic of our lives.
“He’s too much afraid of her,” she said. “He ought to
put his arm about her waist in that love scene.”
“Like that,” I said, suiting the action to the word.
“About like that,” she answered, laughing, “and then he ought
to say something very, very, nice to her before he proposes—something about
his having loved her for so long—you know.”
“And how about her?” I asked, my arm still about her waist.
“If she really loves him,” Hope answered, “she would put her
arms about his neck and lay her head upon his shoulder, so; and then he might
say what is in the story.” She was smiling now as she looked up at me.
“And kiss her?”
“And kiss her,” she whispered; and, let me add, that part of the
scene was in nowise neglected.
. . . . . . . Just then, Uncle Eb opened the door, suddenly.
Isn’t that the way it always is!
I couldn’t help being reminded, as I read that passage, of my favorite
Ole and Lena joke. Ole and Lena were returning to Minneapolis in the car
from their honeymoon when Ole put his hand on Lena’s thigh. Lena said, “Oh
Ole, you can go farther than that.” So Ole drove on to Duluth! It’s
not clear, of course, whether Bill was headed for Duluth or second base when
Uncle Eb came into the room!
Later in the book, of course, Bill and Hope return to the north country for
Christmas on a day not unlike this, described in one of my all-time favorite
passages:
The north country lay buried in the snow that
Christmastime. Here and there the steam plough had thrown its
furrows, on either side of the railroad, high above the window
line. The fences were muffled in long ridges of snow, their stakes
showing like pins in a cushion of white velvet. Some of the small
trees on the edge of the big timber stood overdrifted to their
boughs. I have never seen such a glory of the morning as when
the sun came up, that day we were nearing home, and lit the splendour
of the hills, there in the land I love. The frosty nap of the
snow glowed far and near with pulsing glints of pale sapphire.
Why read this stuff today? One reason, of course,
is because Bacheller was a contemporary of the Canton Laurentians
we recognize today. One can know our honorees better, I think,
by letting Bacheller’s words transport us back to their
time. A second reason is that those characters are really us
in important ways—tied together, village and university—powerfully
and mutually shaped by history, but making good and exciting
things happen together today. Canton is indeed a historic place.
But that is not just about what we were. It is also about who
we are now. We at St. Lawrence are an important part of that
history. We want to be a true partner in shaping a productive
and positive future. That, in the end, is what this day is all
about.
Again, it’s great to see you all here
today. Thank you for being with us, and very best holiday wishes
to you all!
