1/1 - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell University

445 Valley Forge Rd., Devon, PA 19333;
(610) 989-9849.
Early in March our all-time all-timer Reunion
Chair Frank O'Brien (summer address,
2388 A.valon Ave., Avalon, NJ 08202)
wrote from his winter home in Ft. Lauderdale,
FL. I excerpt here further indications
of his never-ceasing thought of the Class of
'31 and Cornell.
"Thinking of Cornell things today. John
B. 'Bud' Mordock '28 and I went together
to the annual Washington's Birthday Cornell
luncheon at the Boca Raton Hotel and
Club. Pres. Frank Rhodes was, as usual,
spellbinding. He also mentioned that Ithaca
had 63 inches of snow in January—20 inches
more than for all of last year! (According
to the Cornell Chronicle, the weekly official
campus newspaper, the area got a lot more
after that!) I enjoy these luncheons, but find
that many of my friends from classes in the
'20s and '30s aren't making it any more, for
one reason or the other! We're all getting
older! So hang in there! I'm to have my 84th
birthday on March 25. Not experiencing any
great difficulties so far! Still walking 1-1/2
to 2 miles every morning. But no cruises or
island hopping planned for this year. Thinking
about our 65th Reunion, coming up in
1996, naturally I talked to Bud about his 65th
Reunion of '28 in 1993, of which he was
chair. His ideas are good and his enthusiasm
is infectious.
"Looking over the 1993 class statistics,
I noted that '31 seemed to top, by far, the
attendance averages. I hope we can continue
to do that. If everyone works on it the
way we did in 1991, we should be able to
set new records! (Everybody take your pills
and do your exercises!) Marion's grandson
Chris Braceland '97, from Dallas, is in the
Ag college. (He was recruited by Richie
Moran, our great lacrosse coach, but broke
his collar bone in early spring practice, and
is out for this season, unfortunately.) Chris
keeps moaning about Those hills are killing
me.' Remember? But then by the time
we were sophomores it didn't seem to bother
us (or did it?). Oh, to be even 50 again!"
LAST CALL! If you haven't yet sent in
your dues and NEWS, DO IT NOW! Put the
Class of '31 back on top in percentage of duespayers,
and in so doing renew your subscription
to the Cornell Magazinel • William M.
Vanneman, Thirwood PI., #121,237 N. Main
St., S. Yarmouth, MA 02664-2075.
^ \ ^ \ President W. E. Mullestein apm
I parently communicated with
•^ m Treasurer Walter F. Deming
j m who, in turn, telephoned me and
I m f j said that they had a letter from
VrM Christopher Florentino '94,
the recipient of this year's Class of '32 Memorial
Scholarship. Chris is a senior in
operations research and industrial engineering,
a brother and two-semester house
manager of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Walt sent
me the letter, from which I quote the following
excerpts:
"Both sets of my grandparents came
from Italy through Ellis Island, and built a
family in America. My parents were married
in 1968 and moved to our current house
on Long Island two months before I was
born in 1971. My father is an electrician and
my mother has recently returned to work
at a local insurance company.
"While my father has done well, even
in this difficult economy, Cornell's tuition
would have been well beyond our means had
it not been for the financial package we received.
It is because of your generosity and
others like you that I will soon be able to
display my diploma from one of the finest
institutions of higher education. All the hard
work my parents and I have put into my
education could not have gotten me this
far—I needed your help."
Walt also sent me Chris's resume, apparently
prepared by the university, and
although it is too long to include here, be
assured that he is an energetic fellow with
interests in golf, racquetball, weight training,
and computer programming. That's what
our Class Scholarship funds are doing for students
who need a little extra support, and we
hope that all our classmates will help us increase
the monies available for this purpose.
• James W. Oppenheimer, 140 Chapin
Pkwy., Buffalo, NY 14209-1104.
Elisabeth Jones Berry brings us up to date
about Annandale Village—a tax-exempt 125acre
facility for educable mentally handicapped
adults, which she and Maxwell '31, MD '35
founded in 1969. More than 20 percent of the
villagers have been trained for outside jobs at
the minimum wage or better. Others do volunteer
work or work in the sheltered workshop
in a new $600,000 program center, which
also has an Olympic-sized gymnasium and
classrooms. Annandale may host some of the
Atlanta Special Olympic games. Betty and Max
appreciate beyond words the some $100,000
which Cornell friends, who heard of Annandale
through this magazine, have contributed
toward its development. For information,
please call the Berrys at (904) 234-2016.
Louise Wulff visited the Cornell campus
on September 11 for the first time in 60 years.
She had trouble getting oriented and recognizing
formerly familiar places. Willard Straight
is no longer the gathering place she remembered.
Vending machines? Hot dog stand?
Dark corridors? Rush-rush mobs? Where was
the beautiful dining room? She did recognize
Buffalo St., where she had lived as a freshman,
and Stewart Ave., where she trudged up
to Goldwin Smith. She wanted to see Balch
Hall, where '32 women lived the first year it
was opened, as well as a number of other places.
But, she said, she would have had to have
an electric mini-cart and a stronger constitution
to make the rounds. However, Louise
knows it is not buildings, but teachers and students
who make a university. She will continue
to express her love of and for Cornell
through her contributions to the Frederick
G. Marcham, PhD '26 Scholarship Fund and
in remembrance of the two front teeth she
left on the hockey field. • Martha Travis
Houck, PO Box 178, Bedminster, NJ 07921.
Those with access to one of several
Who's Who publications will
find Roger Morrison listed. He
has outlined or edited five books
and about 150 articles in scientific
journals. He is adjunct professor
at U. of Arizona, Tucson, working on
CORNELL MAGAZINE
46
safety problems of the proposed Yucca
Mountains (NV) high-level nuclear waste
storage facility. Frank B. Morrison Hall on
the Ag campus bears the name of his father,
a noted professor of animal husbandry.
Roger's sons John, Peter, and Craig have
given him five grandchildren. His wife, Harriet
Williams, died in 1991.
Charles S. "Ted" Tracy—visiting
daughter Anne Tracy Sumners '79 and her
new husband Barry, who live near Sydney,
Australia—saw the Australian Open Tennis
tournament in Melbourne, and in Canberra
saw a wigged barrister at the High Court.
Returning here he was married on March
19 to an old friend, Cynthia Dietz Smith.
With Brit Gordon, he attended the 100th
anniversary of Culver Academy.
Class President Marian Ford Fraser
and husband David, JD '37 visited her sister
Eileen Ford Wood '39 in Victoria, BC,
Canada, where daffodils were blooming profusely
in April. Jane Gibbs McAteer invites
any member of our class to visit her in Columbus,
NC at 246 Pentel Rd., 246 Tryon
Estates. Her husband passed away in 1991.
She has one great-grandson.
Franklin Ofmer's distinguished career
began at Cornell in chemistry, then an MS
at California Inst. of Technology, where he
studied with Linus Pauling, followed by a
1938 PhD at U. of Chicago developing a
modern electrocardiograph. In 1939, he
started Offner Electronics to make medical
instruments and shifted to infrared missiles,
invented a control for jet engines, and use
of transistors, and has 32 US patents. He
was professor of biophysics, biomedical engineering
and electronics at Northwestern
U., 1963 until becoming emeritus in 1979.
Franklin and Janine Zurcher were married
in Geneva, Switzerland and had two sons,
two daughters, eight grandchildren. Hobbies
are painting oils and watercolors. His many
honors and professional memberships are
too numerous to list here.
Samuel H. Rosenberg visited hometown
Canisteo, NY—population 2,000—with
children and grandchildren from Tampa, who
couldn't believe he had had a ball while
growing up in such a small town. Helen
Weisbrod Rowland camps summers with a
motor-home group and spends a few winter
weeks in Florida. She has two new greatgranddaughters.
Margaretta Oldfield
Rymph is still calmly enjoying life. Carl H.
Richmond's health problems prevented his
coming to Reunion, but not his enjoyment
of his great-grandson, 2. Eleanor Bradley
Tunison, on Friday of our 60th Reunion,
lunched on the Hill, but found no sister
Tri-Delts present. She lives alone in Dade
City, FL despite failing eyesight, helped
by good friends. Eleanor Ernst Whittier
is active in a Wilmington, NC garden club,
and is chair and representative to a "Keep
America Beautiful" effort in New Hanover
County, preserving wetlands and planting
roadside flowers. She questions a Cornell
study reported in the Journal of American
Colleges of Nutrition, which found underweight
women less responsive to daily
hassles and uplifts, while overweight women
were more highly emotional in
reactions. • Marjorie Chapman Brown,
PO Box 804, Old Town, FL 32680.