This combines three of my favorite things: Rice Fight Never Dies, Tony Martino, and obsolete technology. We lost that game to a highly ranked A&M team but had a decent season, going 6-3-1 in Jess Neely’s second year.
Bonus: There is no bonus. I’m too tired to even try to figure out who the other two guys in the picture are let alone come up with a bonus. All this cooking is wearing me out worse than my paid employment. I even somehow managed to hurt my back, I think while making an apple pie. An apple pie. Let that sink in. What could I possibly be thinking?!
Apple pies are worth a pain in the back. Suggest getting off your feet, pouring a glass of bourbon for sipping (any time of day on Thanksgiving) and vegging our for a moment or four. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
In a previous time warp, pqd*, I learned that an aged brandy, sniff-sipped from a daughter-gifted giant brandy-sniffer, in the cold early hours of a sleep-created silent household, with a cradled volume of poetry, of serious or humorous nature, frequently restored body and soul.
* Pre Quitting Drinking — NOT to be confused with PDQ or “pretty damn quick”
The other two men appear to be Houston mayor Cornelius A. “Neal” Pickett (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_A._Pickett) and Frank Shell Carothers (https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/108838640/person/260071971839).
They and Tony Martino spoke at the 1941 bonfire. An article on page 2 of the Nov. 21, 1941, Thresher described the magnificent event: (https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/65645/thr19411121.pdf?sequence=1 )
“Tony Martino, rising from a sick bed to make his traditional address, was greeted with thunderous applause as he told the student body of his faith, in the Owls.”
Pickett, who had been “a crack cheerleader in his undergraduate days” at the University of Texas, hopped up on a platform near the West Hall bonfire Friday night to lead 1,000 Institute students and supporters in a yell that split the sky. The mayor then told the crowd gathered to see the Institute’s biggest bonfire in history burst into flames a few moments later that he was certain that student spirit and the determination of the Owl football team would bring- Rice an upset ever the Aggies.”
The “Star of the evening was Alumnus Frank Carothers, famed Aggie baiter. Carothers, speaking for 20 minutes. drew a tumultuous ovation from the crowd when he told them that the greatest trouble the world is suffering from today is an overproduction of Aggies.”
The Frank Carothers shown on page 4 of the February 1948 Sallyport appears to be the same man shown in the photo above (https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/99320/sallyport-vol-04-no01.pdf).
This photo of Mayor Pickett also looks similar to that shown in this oral history: http://www.thehistorycenteronline.com/oral-history/entry/pickett-c.a.-neal1
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Carothers was a popular “after dinner speaker deluxe” speaking at events as diverse as the 1930 R Association Banquet (https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/65304/thr19301219.pdf?sequence=1), Rice’s 1940 Senior Class banquet (https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/65603/thr19400503.pdf ), two 1940 Houston Geological Society events (a stag party at River Oaks Country Club (“For entertainment Frank Carothers gave one of his long orations. There was a report—”Lockjaw’s Oil Retort”—a parody on C. D. Lockwood’s Oil Report.”) and a 1941 banquet (“Dr. F. Stormingham Carothers, B.S., Ph.D., LLD., BVD., IOU., of Goose Creek, Texas, announced as the world’s authority on subsidence, gave loquacious, though refreshingly frank attention to the weaknesses of Association officials; past, present and future.” https://www.hgs.org/sites/default/files/ROCKHOUNDS%20OF%20HOUSTON.pdf ), and the 1945 banquet of Port Arthur’s Retail Merchants Association. (https://newspaperarchive.com/port-arthur-news-feb-11-1945-p-1/)
In 1942, wartime restrictions prevented the bonfire and a “Torchlight Rally” was held instead. Advertised as speaking at it in a front-page article in the Nov. 13, 1942, Thresher were Martino and “the renowned W. F, Carothers, fire-eating, fire-spouting ascriber of Biblical damnations, (who) will put the hex on the Farmers.” (https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/65675/thr19421113.pdf) (I believe the “W.F” may be incorrect.)
The next Thresher (Nov. 20, 1942) did not mention the rally’s speakers, just the Aggie-shearing incident that occurred afterwards: https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/65676/thr19421120.pdf
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Frank Shell Carothers 1889-1957: https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/108838640/person/260071971839 — https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/159517398
He was born in Georgetown, Tex., the son of Frank William Carothers, (1861-1936): https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/108838640/person/260072081251
The 1910 Census (taken on April 15) showed Frank Shell C’s father as “Frank W.”, a bank president in Georgetown, Tex. (https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7884/4454818_01175?pid=28713962) and the 1930 Census, 68-year-old Frank W. Carothers is listed as a real estate salesman. (https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/6224/4547390_00253/60262016).
The 1930/1940 U.S. Censuses show a 40/50-year-old Frank S. Carothers in Houston who lives at a (1930: rented a home at 1922 Kipling/1940: 2343 Underwood Blvd) in Houston. His 37/45-year-old wife’s name appears to be Bonnie, and they have a 9/19-year-old son, Campbell. Frank’s occupation is listed as a store manager for an oil well supplier. His father and mother were both born in Texas. https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/6224/4547972_00803?pid=63438448
His WWI draft registration card said he was a manager for Gulf Coast Oil. Co. https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/6482/005152987_04941?pid=25477236
Frank Shell Carothers wife was the former Bonnie Elliott (1894-1964). They were parents of Campbell Marmion Campbell (1920-1998), who was a 1941 Rice mechanical engineering graduate https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/61627/wrc00671.pdf and https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/65635/thr19410523.pdf .
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Although Frank Carothers is referred to as a Rice alum in some Thresher articles – he appears too old to have been a Rice student – and there is no Frank or W.F. Carothers listed in the Rice alumni Directory, or, that I can find, in the list of Rice graduates.
The earliest Carothers graduates in the 1997 printed Rice Alumni Directory book were 1930 alums Durell Miller Carothers – and his mother, 1901 UT grad Mary Towell Carothers, who earned a Rice M.A. the same year. (https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/65290/thr19300523.pdf ) She is listed elsewhere as Mrs. H.W. Carothers (https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/99369/sallyport-vol-08-no06.pdf ); her husband was Henry Walter Carothers (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/15337895/mary-t.-carothers ), an attorney (1930 & 1940 censuses), whose father was born in Tennessee and mother was born in Mississippi.
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Since names and initials are often reverse, I looked up this W.F. Carothers who (according to this April 28, 1910, letter) was a lawyer practicing in Houston before Rice was created. https://hale.archives.caltech.edu/islandora/object/hale:123259#page/1/mode/1up). A 1910 census page indicates that the lawyer may be Warren Fay Carothers: https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7884/4449330_00730?pid=28147129 , who was also a preacher and inventor: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/55008507/warren-fay-carothers ) … and not apparently related to Frank Shell Carothers or Henry Walter Carothers.
Upon further review … I wonder if the 1942 Torchlight Rally speaker — “renowned W. F, Carothers, fire-eating, fire-spouting ascriber of Biblical damnations” — might be Warren Fay Carothers, rather than Frank Shell Carothers, who spoke at the 1941 bonfire. Too many Carothers!! 🙂
Please forward this comment to the administration. I am shocked that a professor at my university, Michael Deem, would be involved in unlawful genetic experimentation. I hope he will be dismissed as soon as possible. The good name of Rice University has been dragged into the mud,
Steve Weakley
Lovett, 1972