He made Gen. Douglas MacArthur a Mason at sight … There are some who believe that election to the Grand Oriental Chair is a guaranty for longevity. The sixty-one Past Grand Masters who had passed on to the next world had, at the time of their deaths, an average age of 77.8 years. One of them was a centenarian, six were nonagenarians. Only one – the subject of this biographical sketch – was five and forty years old when he died. This is ironic because, of the sixty-one, he was the most physically active. In fact, he played big-league baseball in his youth. Hawthorne was born at Sparta, Illinois on August 1,1891 and died on November 16, 1936. He came to the Philippines in August 1919 as official representative of the Hamilton Brown Shoe Company of St. Louis, Mo. Eminently successful in business, he bought out that company’s local interests in 1926 and became president and manager of the Manila establishment. He was made a Mason in Manila Lodge No.1, F. & A.M. in 1921. After the death of his wife in 1931, he became all the more active and enthusiastic in the Masonic institution. He became the Worshipful Master of his Lodge in 1932 and steadily advanced in Symbolic Masonry becoming one of the most active Deputy Grand Masters the Grand Lodge ever had. Tireless, conscientious, able, and imbued with a truly Masonic spirit, he was elected Grand Master in January 1935. He inspired the Craft, brought life into the Lodges in these islands and in China, and placed Philippine Masonry on a higher plane. As Grand Master, he is also remembered as the man who made Gen. Douglas MacArthur a Mason at sight. A deeply religious man, he felt attracted by Knight Templarism to which he devoted much time and effort, rising to the proud office of Eminent Commander of the local Commandery. His jovial disposition drew him to the Shrine and he was well known as an enthusiastic Noble. Hawthorne had been a Scottish Rite Mason for only three years when he died. He had received the Degrees from the 4th to the 32nd on November 25-29, 1933, in the Manila Bodies. Hawthorne and his friends went to play golf at the Manila Golf Club in Caloocan. After lunch, he began to feel pains in the chest and abdomen. Believing that he was merely suffering from indigestion, he laid down on a couch at the clubhouse porch. Alarmed, his friends sent for physicians. But their efforts were so powerless to stay Death’s hand that half an hour later Hawthorne’s spirit returned to its Giver.