Jobs, Weddings, Babies, and Golf Games: Class Notes Records the Pace of Alumni Lives

A former editor of PAW often said, and correctly, that the heart of this magazine is Class Notes. In our reader surveys, almost 100 percent of responders say they read Class Notes, theirs and the columns immediately surrounding their own.

News in class columns is rarely sensationally gripping — in fact, over time, the repetition of basic biographical data can become mind-numbing: graduate schools attended, professional positions attained, marriages made, children born, lectures delivered, books published, awards received, retirements completed, golf triumphs recounted, and grandchildren enjoyed. (Then, of course, the inevitable: the deaths, the reports of which, in contrast, never seem to dull the mind. When a reader follows the course of someone’s life, even in print, the loss is felt.)

With approximately 62,000 graduates since 1900, that’s a lot of jobs, marriages, children, and grandchildren.

During the first years of PAW, Class Notes was called Class News, and the items were usually short — often one item made up an entire class’s column. Some columns did report on two or three classmates of the class, but within a few years, no secretary published a column with only one son of Nassau mentioned.

During the early part of the 20th century, Class News was larded with reports of alumni being placed as ministers in the Presbyterian Church. In the December 21, 1901, issue, the Class of 1896 reported: “Besides the largest class ever graduated, ’96 has a greater proportion of its members in the ministry than any recent class. Of its 225 members who received their bachelor’s degree, 36, or 16 per cent., studied theology, most of whom are now actively engaged in ministerial work in various parts of the world.”

Nowadays, Class Notes is fat with announcements about alumni finding positions with Internet companies.

Back in the old days, when the classes were much smaller — the Class of 1900 had 186 members — most anything made Class News: In May 3, 1916, the Class of 1909 reported, “Robert F. Rockwell, who attended the class dinner in February, is home again in Colorado.” Not to belittle that accomplishment, but few secretaries today could publish such mundane news, especially given that current classes have well over 1,000 members.

Naturally, a reflective reading of Class News in the early part of the century offers a glimpse of another era: In May 31, 1902, the Class of 1876 reported, “W. J. Henderson, the art critic of the New York Times, is to contribute to the July Atlantic an article on Sailing.” Doesn’t that sound genteel?

Or a glimpse into the future: In September 28, 1956, the secretary of the Class of 1956 reported, “John Doyle, working out of IBM’s New York office, is selling electric typewriters in the Bowery. He swears there’s a market for same . . . “

In the pages of back issues, another kind of history comes forward. Old Princeton names reappear, as succeeding generations of bright eyes make their way to campus and get reported on over their lifetime, names such as the Garretts, the McAlpins, the Erdmans, the Medinas, the Van Dusens.

Charming accounts have often graced PAW’s pages, and sometimes non-Princeton news is printed, then savored by a class fond of its secretary and willing to put up with his word wizardry. In the January 13, 1926, issue, the secretary for the Class of 1898 wrote, “Once again we brazenly announce our name as appearing in the public print, and this time it blossoms forth on page 143 of the new New York City telephone book. So many classmates passing through the city claim they would have called us up only they never can remember our telephone number and so, braving process and subpoena servers, we come out into the open for the public weal and will be much disappointed if frequent telephone calls and free lunches do not follow.”

He goes on to add, “This morning, while looking through the paper, we were startled to see that John R. Booth, 98, father of a princess, died, and we began to wonder who Booth, 98, was. Upon reading through the article we discovered, however, that Booth was a Canadian lumberman and that the numerals referred to his age and not his Class. A true story.”

Space for Class Notes in the current PAW is at a premium. Secretaries routinely clamor for more and would never include extraneous news of a non-Tiger. The 300-word limit now in place is fine for, say, a class from the 1920s, but it barely covers the Class of 1999, with 1,186 members, all of whom we’re sure will go on to myriad jobs, marriages, babies, golf outings, and grandchildren.

Going into the next century, when the nature of class news reporting is bound to undergo a profound shift to e-mail and Web sites, you can be sure that the content won’t change, only the medium.

This story was published in the April 5, 2000, issue of PAW.