BowdoinWINTER 2014 VOL. 85 NO. 2 MAGAZINE Saving Hannes Schneider A Bowdoin alumnus helps launch the American ski industry The Natural: the Boston Red Sox’s Jared Porter ’03 Creative Energy: Five prominent writers on campus Barry Mills on investing in opportunity contents BowdoinMAGAZINE Volume 85, Number 2 30 Winter 2014 Magazine Staff Executive Editor Everybody’s Story Alison M. Bennie Managing Editor Thank you to everyone who wrote or phoned, whether with compliments or Scott C. Schaiberger ’95 criticisms, in answer to my request for feedback to our fall issue. I was struck by Editor the fervor with which some people responded—and what a good thing that is. Matthew J. O’Donnell It speaks to the connections you feel to your fellow alumni and to Bowdoin, an extraordinary fealty that makes this college and the greater Bowdoin community Design Charles Pollock special. “Bowdoin is an intensely human institution,” wrote longtime professor Jim Lucas Herbert Ross Brown H’63, “into whose fabric are woven the [lives] of all those Mike Lamare who have come under her benign influence.” PL Design – Portland, Maine 18 Contributors The articles, news items, and profiles in this issue highlight the breadth and James Caton scope of that influence and are illustrative of the many ways alumni pursue life Douglas Cook and all the variations of the common good, staying connected to the College John R. Cross ’76 and to each other in meaningful ways. We learn of a financier from the Class features Barbara Desmarais of 1902 whose background includes heading the Red Cross during WWI and Rebecca Goldfine serving a prominent role in the nascent ski industry of the ’30s and ’40s, who Scott W. Hood reveled in regaling fellow alumni of his Bowdoin days at the inn he owned in 18 The Natural Megan Morouse Abby McBride New Hampshire. There’s the former athlete from the Class of 2003 who chased BY BILLY BAKER PHOTOGRAPHS BY WEBB CHAPPELL Holly Sherburne his dreams from the ball field to the front office, who always has time to talk to With a “freakish” eye and a major league work ethic, Jared Porter ’03 current students and recent alumni about their path to success. A community Photographs by: scored himself a dream job: director of professional scouting for the 22 of faculty writers, who are teaching and practicing their craft on campus now, Brian Beard, Felice Boucher, Webb Chappell, Boston Red Sox. Anthony Doerr ’95, Dennis Griggs, Bob Handelman, join Bowdoin’s long literary conversation that includes the alumni writers who James Marshall, Mary and Scott Paquette, Michele contributed to this issue as well as those who published recent books noted in 22 Creative Energy Stapleton, Brian Wedge ’97, Darrin Vanselow, and Class News. Bowdoin College Archives. BY ABBY MCBRIDE PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAMES MARSHALL Cover image courtesy of the New England Ski Because these stories are also your stories, because new ones continue to be Right now Bowdoin is a writing powerhouse. No fewer than five Museum. written every day and we want you to share them, we’re reestablishing old ways illustrious writers are on campus teaching courses in fiction and to submit Class News. Look for the submission card folded into this issue and for creative nonfiction. BOWDOIN MAGAZINE (ISSN, 0895-2604) is pub- lished three times a year by Bowdoin College, Class News forms in future correspondence from the College. Mail us, e-mail us, 4104 College Station, Brunswick, Maine, 04011. tweet, or post news our way. We hope this magazine provides the opportunity 30 Saving Hannes Schneider Printed by J.S. McCarthy, Augusta, Maine. Sent for alumni of different generations to become acquainted with each other and BY NATHANIEL VINTON ’01 free of charge to all Bowdoin alumni, parents of to read about how their own stories fit into the greater context of the Bowdoin current and recent undergraduates, faculty and Using his influence to spring a famous Austrian ski instructor from story, which is ultimately the story that we all share. staff, and selected members of the Association of Nazi captivity, financier and ski resort founder Harvey Dow Gibson, Bowdoin Friends. Class of 1902, helped popularize skiing in America. Opinions expressed in this magazine are those of 2 Mailbox 57 Weddings the authors. 4 Almanac 62 Deaths Please send address changes, ideas, or letters to the editor to the address above or by e-mail to Matt O’Donnell 32 Profiles 63 Whispering Pines [email protected]. Send class news to [email protected] 39 Alumnotes 64 Answers [email protected] or to the address above. 207.725.3133 Advertising inquiries? E-mail magazineads@ 40 Class News bowdoin.edu. BOWDOIN | WINTER 2014 [email protected] 1 Mailbox Mailbox Locating the Pilar to the island. In 1939, when Hemingway that the Pilar would still be found where Missing Classes? An Element of Style CORRECTIONS: decided to move to the island he had it was moored in the small 17th-century Dear Editor, Dear Editor, Dear Editor, • On page four of our Fall 2013 issue, we been visiting since 1932, he initially Cuban fishing village of Cojimar, the referred to new Bowdoin Museum of Art I was drawn to a long note by David Pyle lived at the Old Havana hostelry, Hotel inspiration for the Nobel Prize-winning I see [in the fall magazine] that In Bowdoin Magazine, Fall 2013, in your co-directors Frank and Anne Goodyear as “the ’55 while reading the Fall 2013 issue of Ambos Mundos. Room 511 is preserved, Old Man and the Sea. But alas, while one classes prior to 1953 are missing from italicized response, page three, column Goodwins,” an especially embarrassing error, Bowdoin. In the piece, he recounts the looking much as it did when Hemingway can sit at Hemingway’s corner table at the AlumNotes. However, members of older one, you wrote “. five of who are still since our Summer 2013 issue included a long revival of his interest in the works of penned the drafts of For Whom the Bell still-elegant La Terraza Restaurant, the classes are listed in death notices. Is the alive . .” Unless a basic rule of grammar feature article on the Goodyears. In that same Ernest Hemingway, which was sparked by Tolls. The view from the hotel’s famous spectacular view of the harbor no longer moral to this story that the only news of has gone down the drain, “who” should letter, we misspelled Prendergast. a recent book, Hemingway’s Boat (Knopf, rooftop bar/restaurant is far superior to includes the Pilar. However, the boat rests life worth reporting from older classes is have been “whom.” As per what I 2011), about Hemingway’s beloved cabin that of room 511, with a sweeping vista a few miles inland in San Francisco de their departure from the living? There learned in elementary school, you can • On page six in the “Raise Songs to Tilly” cruiser the Pilar. My renewed interest of red tile roofs, church spires, and the Paula, on the grounds of Finca La Vigia, must be at least one old crotchety alum drop the “of who” and see that the “five piece, there were another two errors: a typo in in all things Hemingway was prompted distant harbor. When Hemingway wasn’t the villa Hemingway had purchased in from a class before 1953 who continues are still alive.” Better luck next time. Tony Antolini’s last name and his class year, by re-reading A Movable Feast on a trip writing, he reportedly spent his time December 1940. There sits Pilar, high to be heard over the bedlam. Gary Boone ’51 1963. Also, “Tilly” Tillotson’s honorary to Paris a few years ago and discovering, drinking. When in Havana he frequented and dry and available for viewing, in a Aside from the slight to the ancient degree was bestowed in 1949. book in hand, that most of Papa’s old Left and infirm, you publish an attractive and El Floridita, a few blocks from the Hotel pavilion atop the now-filled-in swimming (Nearly) Cover to Cover • The profile of Carolyn Mann on page thirty- Bank haunts remain intact. While finding Ambos Mundos (note the bust of the pool. The home, guest house, tower, and interesting magazine. two incorrectly listed her class year, which is Dear Editor, Closerie des Lilas and Shakespeare and great man sidling up to the end of the grounds are meticulously maintained as a Ed Samiljan ’51 G’62. Company in Paris is an easygoing task bar) and La Bodequita del Medio, near museum, literally just as the Hemingways Well done! The magazine is terrific: Editor’s Note: We received a couple of notes • The profile of Karen Fasciano ’87 on page for the American enthusiast, locating the Cathedral Square in Old Havana, both left them for the last time in 1960. Wonderful stories, clean layout, easy to to this effect. The majority of Class News has thirty-three should have included mention of Pilar in Cuba takes a bit of effort, even of which still exist and welcome locals read, obits online but with a list of the Richard T. Andrias ’65 always been self-reported. If there’s no news breast surgeon Laura Dominici ’98, another of with today’s relaxed restrictions on travel and tourists alike. One would imagine departed. I read it from cover to cover listed for a class year, it’s because no member of Fasciano’s alumnae colleagues at Dana Farber. (well, I skipped all the weddings, babies, that class submitted an update to us. Send us and class news outside of my husband’s • Jacquelin Gorman ’76’s first name was news, and we’ll print it! era), which is more than I can say for the misspelled in Class News.