A Tribute To Edward S. Seavey, Jr.
5/6/1914 – 6/16/1963
By Wayne I. Elliot
Hampton Union, Thursday, c. June 1963
For several weeks my employer, Edward S. Seavey, Jr., and I had been working as a committee of two to try to arrange for a permanent location for some 21 trophies, three plaques and four cups which were originally presented to athletic competitors at former Hampton Academy and High School. Following the completion of construction at Winnacunnet High School, the trophies became “sidelined” in the ensuing moving shuffle and were only recently resurrected. The report was prepared by the committee last Friday following several hours of work and was later presented at the Alumni banquet Friday evening.
When I returned from my news beat Friday afternoon, the report drafted by. Mr. Seavey was on my desk. It was as we had worked it out. At the bottom was his signature and I signed below it — a mere formality at the time. As I was not going to be present for the banquet, I returned the report to him. When I did, he said, “How come you signed below my name? I left the top space for your signature as you were chairman of the committee.” I replied by speaking what turned out to be my final words to Mr. Seavey, “I prefer to feel we handled it as co-chairmen.”
I came to work for the [The Hampton] UNION a little over two years ago and this is how our relationship was from the first day I took up my new duties as reporter-photographer. As fate would have it, for many years following completion of college, that which I studied and hoped to pursue, journalism, eluded me. Then, Mr. Seavey gave me that opportunity. For two years, he had taught me factors about the newspaper work too numerous to mention — facets which aren’t learned in a college classroom but only following many hours of work, of constant correction and continuous practice.
Mr.. Seavey gave more to society than most people will ever realize through his work as town and school moderator, with the State Board of Education, as chairman of the Trustees of the Exeter hospital right on down through to his faithfulness as a Sunday school teacher at the Congregational church. Yet, in his busy routine of civic work coupled with his love for the UNION and his duties as head of the Hampton Publishing company, Mr. Seavey was never too busy to attend many sports functions.
Day after day, he would ask me the standings of our local teams or how they made out when he couldn’t see the games. He had loved sports and was often in the stands or tramping the sidelines at the field. He was able to witness the Warriors final 1963 win over Sanborn and wrote the game up as yours truly was on vacation. He knew the players. He never hesitated to put an outstanding sporting event on Page 1.
Not too long ago, there was a poem printed in a Boston newspaper entitled “Makin’ An Editor Out of Him”. No author was given. Briefly, it is the story of a father who has aspirations of seeing his son become a newspaper editor. Following is the final verse of that poem:
Then glanced at the grinning young hopeful and mournfully made his reply;
‘Is your son a small unbound edition of Moses and Solomon both?
Can he compass his spirit with meekness, and strangle a natural oath?
Can he leave all his wrongs to the future, and carry his heart to his cheek?
Can he do an hour’s work in a minute, and live on sixpence a week?
Can he courteously talk to an equal, and browbeat an impudent dunce?
Can he keep things in apple-pie order, and do half a dozen things at once?
Can he press all the springs of knowledge with quick and reliable touch,
And be sure that he knows how much to know, and knows how to not know too much?
Does he know how to spur up his virtue, and put checkrein on his pride?
Can he carry a gentleman’s manners within a rhinoceros’ hide?
Can he know all, and do all, and be all, with cheerfulness, courage and vim?
If so, we perhaps can be makin’ an editor out o’ him’.”
What more can I say. The work of an editor and publisher is a tough, gruelling job. Yet, it is one of the most fascinating one could ever imagine. In plain, simple words, this was my “boss”, my friend, my teacher and my ever helping guide in my preliminary work with the UNION. So long, Ed, til we meet again. We’ll miss you.
[See: Obituary of Edward S. Seavey, Jr.]