Hobart and William Smith Colleges

The Last Word

In 1985, Harold E. Klue '27 was asked why he established a scholarship at Hobart and William Smith. To celebrate his posthumous induction into the Seneca Society this spring, this is his story, in his own words.

by Harold E. Klue '27

"My recollections of Hobart College go back a long way. As a town boy, I remember some of the events of Hobart's centennial in 1922, and I used to look forward to the annual games with the Onondaga Indian lacrosse team. (They did not seem to mind having a small boy stay with their squad and their camaraderie, plus their ability to handle a lacrosse stick, fascinated me.) Once, an Oxford-Cambridge team came to play; I assumed Hobart must have been very good playing a team from so far away.

Some things which I remember seemed very strange to me at the time, including certain fraternity initiation rites. I remember seeing young men on their hands and knees rolling a peanut up Seneca Street hill with their noses. This always seemed to happen on a busy October afternoon just when Driscoll's horse-drawn delivery wagons were loading groceries at Walter Riegle's grocery store, just above the opera house.

My father, in his teens in the 1890s, had a job driving a hack for a local livery stable. He once told of driving a fraternity group and their pledge to the watering trough on South Main Street at the foot of the hill at the entrance to Glenwood Cemetery, where they left the pledge securely tied.

I was taught the importance of education at a very early age. My parents were well aware of the hopeless position of unskilled labor in Geneva. By the time I was in high school I had been very thoroughly convinced of the necessity of establishing the best possible high school scholastic record and of going on to college somewhere out there, if I were to have any future at all.

How education was going to accomplish this miracle was not yet clear to me, but I realized that there was much more to college than peanuts, watering troughs and lacrosse. How I was going to finance college was of increasing concern to me. I soon learned that working as hard as I might at the Standard Optical Company every summer from the age of 14 was not the answer.

During the school year, basketball was my joy. Our Boy Scout troop had a basketball team, and our scoutmaster and coach, Ernest Olmstead, had played at Hobart. He gave us a good start. We played in the church basement and the YMCA leagues until some of us could go on to high school play. By my senior year I was playing varsity ball. The old high school on Milton Street had no gymnasium and we would all play our games where we could, in the local armory or sometimes at Hobart as preliminary to college games. There we got to see Hobart teams in action and Coach "Deak" Welch got to see us.

That winter, college became of ever greater concern to me. I could not see any possible way of financing four years of college and I really had no idea where I might turn for guidance. And then one day Olmstead came to see me about the possibility of my going to Hobart. He thought a scholarship might be available. Here was a ray of hope! He arranged an appointment and we went up to see George Roberts, President Bartlett's secretary. I told him of my interest in going to Hobart and I explained my financial predicament. He gave me some application forms to fill out, which I promptly filled, and to my amazement and joy I was promptly notified that I had been accepted and, further, granted a scholarship. With part-time work I hoped to raise the balance I would need. In mid-summer, I received word that I had been awarded a Regents Scholarship by the NYS Department of Education. I was in the clear! A miracle!

I finished all of Hobart's requirements for the Baccalaureate at the end of my junior year but requested that I be awarded my degree with my class the following June. I was accepted in the Graduate School of Political Science at Columbia University that fall and I found housing in a boarding school on 120th Street as a dormitory master.

I received my master's degree in Political Science at Columbia in June just as Lindbergh was returning from his historic flight to Paris and I returned to Hobart a few days later to graduate with the Class of '27.

I had worked in the Geneva playground system summers while at Hobart and that summer of '27 I left immediately to direct the municipal recreation system at Herkimer, N.Y., and then in the fall went on to teach at the Riverdale County School.

Increasingly demanding duties at Riverdale, travel (including considerable time spent in the Far East), a thirteen-year stint as Director of Camp Riverdale in the Adirondacks, a commitment over several years working with Eleanor Roosevelt and her staff in establishing a chapter of the United Nations Association, USA, in Riverdale, a considerable time preparing educational material for UNICEF and a few other pursuits kept me occupied and I never did get back to visit Hobart at all.

Over the years, the Colleges have grown and changed beyond belief. I do not believe that there were more than 200 students at Hobart in the '20s. It is hard to visualize all the new buildings and facilities and how they must have changed student life. A current college catalog gives a glimpse of a far different educational experience than ever possible in our day. There seems to pervade a sense of direction and purpose and dedication on the part of faculty and students. They sense that something special, something very good, is going on here. Students seek out the Colleges and parents support them. They recognize the Colleges' high standards.

I often think of that important turning point in my life when Ernest Olmstead and George Roberts and Hobart College gave me the help and the direction that set me on the path to a college education. And then I think that there must be young men and women today who are anxious to come to Hobart and William Smith who find the financing beyond them. I realize that deserving young people who need help today are in a far more precarious position than ever we were in our youth and I would like to help them, some of them, at least. Just as I have so often found in my own life I would like them to know that someone out there cares very much about them. Thus I propose setting up this trust to provide scholarships for this purpose.

Harold Klue's transformative estate gift, totaling over $1M, will provide generations of Hobart and William Smith students with necessary financial assistance through his endowed scholarship fund to make their dreams of attending college a reality. His passion for education and his legacy will live on through his future recipients. Thirty-four years ago, someone had the foresight to ask Harold to share his story when making this commitment; today, we are so thankful to be able to share it with you.
-Bob O'Connor P'22, Vice President for Advancement