This one’s a little hard to believe.
In the January 1940 issue of The Fortean Society Magazine, Tiffany Thayer listed a number of people who had sent in clippings that he had not yet been able to use. Among those was Chandler Ide. He was never heard from again.
That name is quite rare, and most often associated with H. Chandler Ide, who served as executive assistant to the deputy administrator of the petroleum administration during World War II. After the war, he co-wrote a famous—at least in certain circles—history of the petroleum administration, and also went ingot he oil business himself, becoming an important corporate executive in California.
Could this be the same Chandler Ide who was mentioned by Thayer? It seems unlikely, and there is no direct proof—but some evidence supports the conclusion.
Chandler Ide was born to a Congregationalist minister (also named H. Chandler Ide) in Mt. Vernon New York, 1909. Eventually the family relocated to Redlands, California. I cannot find out what he was doing in 1939 and 1940, and it is theoretically possible that the Chandler Ide in question is his father, who died in 1949. But there’s reason to believe that the Fortean Society member was Ide the younger.
In 1989, ten years before he died, H. Chandler Ide, Jr., self-published book humbly called “Reflections of a Thoughtful Man.” There is no doubt that this is the same Chandler Ide who worked for the government during World War II and became a corporate executive, as there is a potted biography of the author in the back.
The reason that I think this book connects Chandler Ide to the Fortean Society is that the reflections are musings on a new age-ish kind of religion—one not unfamiliar to other Forteans—as well as an aloof appreciation for science that acknowledges its limits. One of the final chapters is a very Fortean collection of newspaper clippings.
Is this definitive proof? No. I would love to have more information, but seem to have hit a wall. If this was the same Chandler Ide, though, it makes sense that he would have dropped out of the Fortean Society in the early 1940s given Thayer’s politics.
In the January 1940 issue of The Fortean Society Magazine, Tiffany Thayer listed a number of people who had sent in clippings that he had not yet been able to use. Among those was Chandler Ide. He was never heard from again.
That name is quite rare, and most often associated with H. Chandler Ide, who served as executive assistant to the deputy administrator of the petroleum administration during World War II. After the war, he co-wrote a famous—at least in certain circles—history of the petroleum administration, and also went ingot he oil business himself, becoming an important corporate executive in California.
Could this be the same Chandler Ide who was mentioned by Thayer? It seems unlikely, and there is no direct proof—but some evidence supports the conclusion.
Chandler Ide was born to a Congregationalist minister (also named H. Chandler Ide) in Mt. Vernon New York, 1909. Eventually the family relocated to Redlands, California. I cannot find out what he was doing in 1939 and 1940, and it is theoretically possible that the Chandler Ide in question is his father, who died in 1949. But there’s reason to believe that the Fortean Society member was Ide the younger.
In 1989, ten years before he died, H. Chandler Ide, Jr., self-published book humbly called “Reflections of a Thoughtful Man.” There is no doubt that this is the same Chandler Ide who worked for the government during World War II and became a corporate executive, as there is a potted biography of the author in the back.
The reason that I think this book connects Chandler Ide to the Fortean Society is that the reflections are musings on a new age-ish kind of religion—one not unfamiliar to other Forteans—as well as an aloof appreciation for science that acknowledges its limits. One of the final chapters is a very Fortean collection of newspaper clippings.
Is this definitive proof? No. I would love to have more information, but seem to have hit a wall. If this was the same Chandler Ide, though, it makes sense that he would have dropped out of the Fortean Society in the early 1940s given Thayer’s politics.
