Evert Jansen Wendell

Evert Jansen Wendell was a spring of living enthusiasms and devotions. He was a New Yorker and he was a Harvard man, of the class of ’82; he had been a runner, and was ever an ardent friend of sports; he was an amateur actor, and was always a friend to the stage; all his life he was a lover of children, of boys, of young men; and he died in Paris establishing a club-house for American soldiers as a branch of the Young Men’s Christian Association. He had been Secretary of the New York Harvard Club and a Harvard Overseer, and was as popular and widely known a graduate as could be found. He was a public-spirited New Yorker, and several times foreman of the grand jury. He was a manager of Randall’s Island, and of the Children’s Society, and a promoter of the Boy Scouts and of boys’ clubs everywhere and always. His manner, his personality, brimmed with cordiality. Surveying the activities and interests of Evert Wendell one feels through them all the genial current of something more than interest, of veritable participation in the life and loves, the hopes and joys of youth—of the young. That never ceased to pulse in him until he died sharing in the hopes and tribulations of our young soldiers.

Henry Osborn Taylor
1918 Century Association Yearbook