DOLPH DIED at his home in Wayne, Penn., on Feb. 17. He was one of '27's many-sided men. The Philadelphia busi¬ness community knew him as a lawyer, and as a director of Merck & Co., chemists. His hometown appreciated his many community services to Radnor Township and as vestryman of St. David's Episcopal Church. Gardeners and landscape planners admired his skill in refining his estate, "Chanticleer," into a model for their art. His will provided that it should be a semi-public arboretum. He made munificent gifts to Princeton, including the Rosen¬garten Chair of Modern and Contemporary History.
During WWII Dolph assumed a role that was long unknown even to his relatives and friends. He enlisted in 1941 as a private, trained at the Bletchley Park Code and Cipher School in England, and became a U.S. Army intelligence officer, especially for generals Hodges and Bradley, particularly for intercepted messages in the Ger¬man Enigma Signal Code. He participated in the inva¬sion of France, won a Bronze Star and five battle stars, and rose to lt. colonel. The experience aroused an intense interest in military history, in which he earned a doctorate at the Univ. of Pennsylvania.
Dolph's courage appears in an incident reported by his obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer. He attempted to disarm a robber, who shot him. The bullet lodged near his heart. The surgeon gave it to him, and Dolph wore it as a watch charm.
We sympathize with his widow (formerly Virginia Smith Dennison, widow of Morgan Dennison '35), and with his two nephews, a niece, and eight grandnieces and grandnephews.
The Class of 1927