New: A recently-discovered interview with Robert I Owen for the Rutgers Oral History Archives of World War II gives us a priceless look into the life of the pre-war era. Note also that Brothers who were in the House mainly in the 1930's are nonetheless represented in their interviews on the 1940's page.

Continuing the Chronicle of Nu Beta, with addition content:

As the Roaring Twenties drew to a close, the cabinet of John Davies, Frederic Le Rocker, Albert Beams, John Ahlgren and Fred Astley, along with the brotherhood and the alumni, explored the idea, during 1929-30, of building a new chapter house. By the Summer of 1930, that prospect had dimmed, with a more realistic course of action being a modicum of remodeling. It cost $18,000. The dining room doubled in size, a new kitchen was created, bath facilities were tripled, a new heating unit installed, and an additional dorm room added.

In 1930, diminutive back brother Whitney Stager made for a bit of thrilling history, in his 60-yard run for a touchdown in a win against George Washington. Irving Christenson also brought honor to the house when he was elected to Spiked Shoe, the honorary track society, and served as leader of the Rutgers Band. Half a dozen other men backed him up on the Band, while an equal number manned the Glee Club. Robert Johnson was part of the Rutgers 200-yard relay team that broke the intercollegiate record in 1930 in St. Louis.

Unlike current grad-undergrad confabs, alumni relations were much more formal, at least until the evening got going, and tall tales and jibes would fire scattershot across the table. In that single year, interaction  consisted of a smoker on Nov 1, the Pig Dinner at the Elks Club on Feb 13, and a Section II dance at the Barbizon Plaza.

The cabinet of Edward Eppel, Charles Blasberg, Albert Beams, Walter Stager, and Fred Astley vacated on March 13, 1931 to make room for the newly elected officers: Anson Riggs, Winfield Bonynge, Jr., Richard Hadden, Eric DeVisme, and Herbert Porch. That year Daniel Lipman was elected president of the Junior class, brother Stager played his fourth year of varsity baseball, and Edgar Curtin was elected Scarlet Letter representative for the Class of 1933. Road trips consisted of a full turnout at Yankee Stadium for the football game against N.Y.U., with a return visit to the Big Apple for Pig Dinner at the Phi Gamma Delta Club on March 19.

Fijis of the fifties were accustomed to seeking advice from Brother Curtin in his return to the Banks as Associate Dean of Men. Curtin served as steward and Corresponding Secretary in 1932-33. Records of the time show his tenure as one of extreme efficiency. The cabinet of which he was a member included Eric W. De Visme, Keron Chance, Arthur Hawkinson, and Culbert Strauss. Curtin was President of the Hortus Club, Daniel Lipman business manager of the Scarlet Letter, Louis Hemerda, Arnie Truex and Hec Gardner performed on the gridiron, and Guy Richdale was a top man on the new (at the time) Rutgers crew. December 20 saw a party for needy children, March 17 a Father and Son Dinner (the first), and Pig Dinner had Dr. Jacob Lipman as toastmaster. Honored guests were Archon President Horace Brightman and Historian William F. Chamberlin.

Keron Chance took over as President for the 1934-35 school year after two years as Treasurer. He succeeded Culbert Strauss. Arnold Truex followed Chance as Treasurer. Guy Richdale Jr. followed Arthur Hawkinson, as Recording Secretary, John Mason followed Herbert Freer as Corresponding Secretary and Luis  Hemerda succeeded John Mason as Historian.

The Ladies Auxiliary, comprising mothers and wives of the brothers, announced their social program for the year, including several teas and other functions to raise money. In order to improve the scholastic standing of the Chapter, George Briggs, Northwestern '33, was hired as house tutor. Briggs lived in the House and designated the hours 7-9 P.M. on four weekdays as hours during which he was available. His services bore fruit, as the House average went from dead last to 10th among 21 houses.

Under the leadership of Edwin Lawson, George Borden, Louis Eppel, Richard Marshall and Carlyle Miller, an intelligent approach toward raising the Cheney Cup standing was prosecuted in the 1935-36 timeframe. Vaughn Cay, chair of the Activities Committee, enforced a rule that each pledge played or managed at least one sport, and worked in a non-athletic organization.  Borden, captain of the wrestling team, was also active in football. Lou Eppel captained the water polo team. Hector Garner and Robert Zimmerman played football, Perry Bascom won a letter in crew, and Ed Larson was a member of the undefeated 150-pound football squad. The spirit of Frank Merriwell visited in May 1936, as Ace Miller hit a walk-off homer against rival Princeton.

Nu Betas in the 30's were well served in the kitchen by, first, Cale and Annie Johnson from 1931-36, ably followed by Ralph and Beulah Jackson, who served into the 50's (at least; actual tenure not known to this writer).  Beulah, pictured here, was famed for her excellent apple pies, and called all brothers 'Apple', earning the reciprocal nickname 'Ap' from the 'hood.

The 1937-38 cabinet was Ames Bradish, Warren Cluff, Vaughn Cary, Carlyle Miller, and John Patterson, relieving Perry Bascom, Charles Edgerly, Roy Reynolds, Richard Marshall and Vaughn Cary on May 4. All the good food of the Jacksons was needed to power the many Fiji athletes of that year. Walter Bruyers was a bulwark of the footballers on the line. The lightweight team boasted Ralph Shaw, Homer Clapper and Swede Cary; the team went to the championship.

The year was filled with banquets, parties and dinners. RU coaches were feted in October. Hank van Mater starred at Pig Dinner on March 12, and President Clothier and University Deans were honored at a dinner in February. It is likely that a sumptuous repast followed the defeat, for the second year running, of the Raritan Club's swim team by the Nu Beta natators. In other campus activities, Carl Miller was outstanding in Cap and Skull, Scabbard and Blade, Kappa Phi Kappa, AND held a class office. In May 1938, Howard Barto, Walter Bruyere, Richard Ely, Charles Edgerly and Richard Hartman headed the new cabinet.

Nu Beta was once again well represented in leading campus activities. Walt Bruyere was Student Council president, and cadet colonel of ROTC. This impressive gentleman brought prestige to the Chapter through his election to Cap and Skull, Spiked Shoe and Scabbard and Blade, and won varsity letters in football, track and water polo. Bud Shaw, captain of the 150-pound football team, earned All American quarterback honors. He was also elected to Cap and Skull, as well as being a member of Psi Chi national honor society in psychology. Stew Brown was a cheerleader, Editor-in-Chief of The Anthologist, Literary and Fine Arts Journal. He was elected to the Queens Players, and was one of the authors of the Varsity Show that year. 1938 also saw two Fiji faculty members as a Pittsburgh (Harvey Harman, football coach) and an Alabama (Larry Tipton, Extension Division Professor) alumnus came to The Banks.

The dedication of a new football stadium was crowned with a victory over Princeton, remarkably, the first since the very first game in 1869, shades of the Centennial football victory on national TV in the sixties. [ed. How far the football fortunes have come in this new century!]

Walt 'Boo Boo' Bruyere
, and Fiji legend Vince Kramer were instrumental in this upset victory.

Here is an excerpt from the Rutgers Oral History Archives (reprinted with permission), of an interview with Robert I. Owen, '41, providing some wonderful detail of another era through his personal account. Abbreviations are MC for 'Melanie Cooper', SS for ' Sandra Stewart Holyoak', and KP for 'Kurt Piehler':

RO: I opted to become a pledge, and did as a freshman for Phi Gam, even if I didn't live on campus. So ... that was my fraternity, and I had a good time there. They were a pretty well behaved bunch, in those years anyway. We always had ... a man, living in the house, who did the cleaning and so, and his wife was the cook, a nice black couple.

MC: Where was your fraternity house? Was it on frat row?

RO: No, no. There's a big dorm where it used to be. You know where the Chi Phi house is? Well, if you go north toward the river ... it was at the corner of Bishop Place and that next street.

MC: George Street.

RO: George Street. It was a beautiful old building, up ... on a hill, looking out over the river. Seems to me one of the George Street fraternities now is down below, on the right to where that used to be. But that was a nice, we had a fire later on and they had to move and they moved twice. I guess now they have moved a third time, fourth time, maybe.

SS: Do you remember your initiation?

RO: Yes, well, not so much the initiation, I remember "hell week." In our particular fraternity, the tradition then was that you each got a big bunch of onions hung around your neck. ... Whenever an upper class-man saw you, he would ask some question and then you would have to take a bite of onion. And you couldn't take them off, day or night, right. ... Plenty of people [gave you] room in class, people moved away. And there was still, still there was still paddles then. I don't recall it ever being abused. I always had mixed feelings. I think it was sort of a rite of passage, and it wasn't all that harmful. There weren't any pranks so serious that anybody, at least in our fraternity, ever got seriously hurt. They might scare you to death a little bit. I remember Vince Kramer particularly. I remember he and I were not the best of friends, it wasn't bad, but we just sort of had different personalities. Well, he was the football hero and I was the runner. He was contact sports and I was not contact sports. ... Oh where was I, wandering too much again.

SS: About the initiation.

RO: ... I remember particularly being so impressed that upper classmen would challenge freshmen, you know, for exchanging swats. You would have to swat them first, the upper classmen, you know, he'd bend over assume the position and you would give him a swat, and then it was his turn. [laughter] ... I remember Vince particularly was very stalwart in this regard, and I think one of the seniors and he must have exchanged about ten swats. ... I don't think either one of them sat down for a while. It was a very good period at Phi Gamma Delta. ... We had, I think, an exceptionally compatible group of people in all the different classes. I think, at one time I did check out on ... the contributions to Rutgers from different classes and there were an awful lot of active people in the class of '41. And '38, '39, '40, '41, '42, '43, I mean somewhere in that group, ... people had such a good, active time that they continued their fondness by supporting Rutgers more than some others might.

Here's a short account of the 1938 Rutgers victory over Princeton by Robert A. Greacen, '41. The importance of the victory over Princeton has had a modern echo in the nationally televised upset of then Number 3 Louisville in November 2006, which many will no doubt count among their personal highlights. Abbreviation is SH for ' Sandra Stewart Holyoak':

SH: You were at Rutgers in 1938. Did you see the famous Rutgers versus Princeton game?

RG: Yes. It was one of the biggest events of my life. Yeah, that was great, first time beating Princeton, since the original game. I enjoyed that game, really, and, during that game, really, I think back now, there were some of the original players of that game there.

SH: Really?

RG: Yeah. I think there were three or so, from 1869.

SH: Can you remember any of the events that happened on that famous day?

RG: Well, all the fraternities were decorated far beyond anything they had ever had before. There were parades and pep rallies every night for the last three or four nights. It was a very exciting occasion.

SH: Were you involved in a fraternity at that point?

RG: I was a Phi Gamma Delta, which my father had been at Worchester Tech.

SH: Really?

RG: Yea, and I have a son who's … one at Denison.

SH: What was your initiation like in those years?

RG: We had "Hell Week," a whole week of fraternity, in burlap underwear, no sleep. It was fun.



These two pictures come to us courtesy of Bryan Luoma '98, who scanned and sent them to us from some old Scarlet Letters.

From Rutgers Scarlet Letter 1930, p. 299



Text contents reprised below

FRATRES IN FACULTATE

Edmond Wood Billetdoux

Russell Farnsworth Mann

David Fales, Jr.

Henry Lea Mason

Howard Frederick Huber

Carl Raymond Woodward

Jacob Goodale Lipman

Henry Lear Van Mater

   

CLASS OF 1929

Russell Morse Bettes

Robert Charles Johnson

Charles Bradley Harrison

Emory Curtis Risley

James Manning Burton Hulsart

Charles Henry Tiger

John Henry Winant

 
   

CLASS OF 1930

John ALfred Ahlgren, Jr.

Herbert Bigner Lehmann

Albert Samuel Beams

Frederic Chester LeRocker

Willis Peter Bilderback

Irving Albert Quackenboss

John Frederick Davies

Otto Nicholas Schuster

Clement Davis Gordon

Milton Russell Stalker

   

CLASS OF 1931

Curtis Cornelius Ackerman

Paul West Engelke

Frederick Beeler Astley

Edward Henry Eppel, Jr.

Charles Hugo Blasberg

Louis Mifflin Hayes

Winfield Bonynge, Jr.

Wilbur Bush Hummell

Irving Knud Christensen

Charles William Oxberry

Donald Rouse Creighton

Charles Julius Petreins

Thomas Wilson Davis

Walter Edward Stager

Wesley Henry Zeliff

 
   

CLASS OF 1932

Robert Oliver Downs

Philip Van Dorn McLaughlin

Warren Elmer Grodotske

Herbert Moore Porch

Richard Moulton Hadden

Anson Van De Water Riggs

James Ewin Lamb, Jr.

Walter Werner Runge

James Harold MacArt

Marshall William Walsh

Edwin Taylor Wertheim

 




Brothers, we would LOVE to get more of these; please send any digital images to our webmaster.
Nu Beta of Phi Gamma Delta at Rutgers University
Home

Chapter
History

1910's
1920's
1930's
1940's
1950's
1960's
1970's
1980's
1990's
2000's
2010's
2020's
. . .