Class of '43 Comes Home Again

The Class of 1943--with paunches and bald spots and wives and babies--came home yesterday.

In all, 1900 people trooped through the Union, registered, ate vichyssoise, cold turkey, and tomato aspic salads, then trooped out again carrying immense bundles of Class of 1943 Paraphernalia: '43 wastebaskets, '43 combs, '43 razors, '43 lipstick, '43 keychains, '43 showercaps.

The true mark of the '43 alumnus, however, was an Austrailan hat, with its brim folded up on one side and pinned with a button reading: "Meet the Old Campaigner, E.D.P. Kilroy III '43."

'43 was a war class, a class that began graduating as early as the fall of 1942, when a squeeze for personnel to stock the Army was on.

Morris Gray, General Chairman of the 25th Reunion, said that the war broke the class up, and this year's turnout, slightly smaller than previous years, was a result of "this attrition that hurts class spirit."

The 25th Reunion is the quintessential alumni affair. One woman, a member of the Hospitality Committee, said, "Some people go to Harvard just so they can go to their 25th Reunion."

The work begins early. Already, members of the Class of 1944 are observing this year's fete to give them ideas for 1969. Gray said that his committee of 150 alumni began serious work just after Labor Day, 1947. From then on, it is nearly a full-time effort to get all the details intricately planned, down to the '43 emblems on the cans of Carling Black Label beer.

The alumni and their families are divided into seven groups--from Classmates and Wives, with headquarters at the Hasty Pudding Club Bar, to Second, Third, and Fourth Graders, with head-quarters at the Fessenden School in West Newton.

In between, there is the College Group, which will have "entertainment at the Varsity Club with The Dennis Pelley Duo" on Tuesday night, and the Senior Group (10th, 11th, 12th graders), which will go swimming at Crane's Beach on Thursday morning.

'43 is the first of 13 reunion classes to arrive. 5500 alumni are expected during the week, from the 65th Reunion Class of 1903 to the Fifth Reunion Class of 1963. In addition 3600 degree candidates and their families are here for Harvard's 317th Commencement.