Boar's Head

Tradition holds that the Boar's Head festival (Avon Old Farms edition) began during the Pierpont era, but, when I came across this picture last summer, I began to wonder whether the Founder's era also featured Boar's Head.  The picture is from the thirties and this youth would fit in well at a medieval feast.  On the other hand, the Avon Weekly News-letter, which leaves no stone unturned in describing life at school in the mid-thirties, makes no mention of Boar's Head.  So I spoke to Carol Ketcham, the school archivist, who was able to confirm that the first Boar's Head took place in the mid-fifties.  This youth might have been having his picture taken before a church pageant or perhaps a theater production in the refectory, but he was not headed for Boar's Head.
Aspiration and Perseverance, the history by Gordon Clark Ramsey, has the notes from the 1964 Boar's Head, and it looks as though very little has changed in the last 45 years.  We still start with the Jester yelling "Make Way!" and finish - after St. George has vanquished the dragon - by singing "Auld Lang Syne." Most of the things in between - including many of the Jester's lines and songs we sing - remain unchanged.  One thing that has changed is the musical entertainment.  In 1964, and into the 80s, Brad Mason, a veteran of Broadway who held a variety of teaching and administrative posts (including directing Boar's Head), sang "O Holy Night" as a solo.   Now, of course, we have the Riddlers, who offer a couple of musical interludes.  Nonetheless, it is clear that any of the 1964 cast members would have been able to play his role again in 2011 without much of an adjustment.

Footsteps - a personal aside

Yet another reminder this morning that I am following in my grandfather's footsteps.  I am in Virginia for a meeting of the College Board's Academic Advisory Council, and this morning V.P. Jim Montoya spoke briefly about the Board's history.  I had not looked it up, but I had been wondering when the College Board came to be; the Avon Weekly News-letter makes frequent references to Grandpa's consulting on College Entrance Exams.  I had wondered if Grandpa was working with the College Board (the full name of the Board is the College Entrance Examination Board), but I did not know whether it existed in those days.  Jim's brief history tells me that it did, and I am now relatively sure that this - my service to the College Board - is yet another way in which I am following in Grandpa's footsteps.
Of course, there are plenty of things to remind me of the family legacy at school; every visit to Brown Auditorium takes me by a picture of Dad, and the old board room, where I attend meetings at least weekly, contains a photo of Grandpa entertaining several students near the fireplace in his house in Diogenes (now the Lampe residence).  Still, I sometimes get an odd, not-exactly-deja-vu feeling when I discover another one of these connections.  If papers in his Islesboro study are any indication, Grandpa was a big Abe Lincoln fan - another thing we have in common.  I did not really know Grandpa, but I think of him as a taciturn man in the style of Calvin Coolidge; perhaps that is how I come by my dynamic social style.
So there is a bowtie-wearing Custer in the history department at Avon Old Farms, and he does quite a bit of volunteer work with the College Board?  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Thanksgiving At Avon

These days, this time of year brings a 10 day vacation, with the boys heading for home after classes on the Friday before Thanksgiving.  It is a welcome respite after a long fall of work.  In the founder's era, though, Thanksgiving brought ONE day off - and even that day was not entirely off.  Instead of students' going home, parents came to school for the holiday.  The boys would play the last football games of the season in the morning - in '35, the Senior Eagles and Junior Diogenes won the day - before everyone, parents and even alumni included - went to the refectory for a traditional turkey dinner, "such as only Mr. Candels can make and serve."  After the meal and a brief speech by Dr. Kammerer, many of the parents went to the provost's house to meet Mrs. Riddle before taking their sons off campus for the afternoon and evening.  There was no study hall, but everyone was due back for the regular weekday lights out.
The Thanksgiving ('35) Issue of the Avon Weekly News-letter reports that the boys doing community service at Hill-Stead that fall had learned a great deal about preparing for Thanksgiving.  They had cut, brought in, husked, and shelled the corn ("What they haven't learned about corn harvesting just isn't there to learn"), and they had picked and sorted the apples for cider.  This was on top of the usual Hill-Stead chores of milking and caring for the cows, pigs, and sheep, etc.

This fall, by the way, Avon students have returned to Hill-Stead.  They are not going over to do farm chores, of course, but they are taking advantage of the farm work others are doing.  Graham Callaghan takes a group over on Sundays to visit the Farmers' Market that Hill-Stead hosts.

Frogs & Other Updates

from the May 14, 1935 News-letter:  Miscellany - Frogs: Sunday in a rickety, leaky old punt that sunk four times beneath him, Lindberg had the good fortune to catch 4 magnificent, arrogant  bullfrogs at Lower Walton pond with a pitchfork, and their legs were eaten with relish that evening at supper.
& on May 28th, under Science Department: Turtle: On the road to the island yesterday at about 5:00 P.M. Lindeberg picked up a snapping turtle about 15 inches long ... Which reminds us that the last time Verne severed a turtle's head, the said head, after it had been severed, seized and killed a hen who thought dead heads couldn't bite.  (This is really so; see Verne about it.)

I've said it before: one of the most striking things about the Founder's Era is the extraordinary number and diversity of animals Avonians encountered (and potentially ate).  Lest you think the above notes uncommon, I'll assure you the Weekly News-letter contains other references to frog-eating, and the rabbitry is mentioned frequently as well.

I have now finished reading the Weekly News-letter for the '34-'35 school year, leaving only '35-'36 to go.  Once I have finished that tome, I will try to set up an interview with the author.  I hope he has time; just last week he was leading the OWS folks in a stirring rendition of We Shall Overcome in Columbus Circle.  Still vital at 92!

Also, a practical matter.  It seems a number of factors suggest a change in the camera I use to record my interviews.  (The recordings will go to the school's archives when, if ever, I am finished with them.)  Thus, it may be a few weeks before the next interview.

Stop That Crow!

Spencer Grey '45 is in with the first submission to www.avonoldfarms.com/history.  He remembers Bill Kegley fondly.  At one point, Spencer and some friends were invited to tea at Hill-Stead; "Bill Kegley drove us to Hillstead, and as we approached the front door, the butler was waiting for us in full livery. Bill said we should jump out of the car as fast as possible so that the butler would not have time to open the car door for us." If Kegley was a wee bit mischievous on that occasion, though, he was very thoughtful on another.  Mrs Riddle refused to come to Commencement in 1944 (remember the faculty had retired en masse and the school would soon be closing), but she sat in her car on Dio Circle during the event.  Bill Kegley rounded up as many students as he could and instructed them to go out to the car and say goodbye.  "It was a sad and moving occasion," Grey recalls. 
Grey also remembers keeping a fire lit under a cauldron in the water tower so as to make maple syrup, getting to go upstairs and look at model trains rather than remaining at the formal tea at Hill-Stead, an obstacle course beyond the bank (now Headmaster's Office), and the change in evening dress code that he thinks doomed Provost Brooks Stabler.  He remembers faculty members Dr. Knowles and Mr. Thayer (was he known as Pop?) fondly.
He also tells the story of a friend from the Berkshires who returned from Spring Break with a pet crow, which then lived outside his dorm window.  In those days there was a Sunday tea at the Provost's house, and in good weather it was held outside on the terrace.  It seems that on one of these occasions, the pet crow swooped out of the sky and made off with Mrs. Stabler's silver sugar tongs, which were never seen again!

Alice Makes the Avon List

The April 23, 1935 edition of the Avon Weekly News-letter, put together by friends while Pete Seeger was recuperating from whooping cough, lists those who had made the honor lists for the third quarter.   Reed Estabrook, future Chairman of the Board, made the Dean's List, while Tom Custer, "Pete" Hart, Pete Seeger, and Alice Sperry made the "Avon List."  Wait...Alice Sperry?!
Alice was the daughter of science teacher Holland Sperry, and it seems she at least was allowed to attended Avon - presumably as a day student.  I have seen Alice's transcript, but I have yet to come across evidence of any other girls among the Men of Avon.  It would have been limited, one assumes, to the daughters of faculty members - perhaps to the exclusion of one little girl who offended TPR by announcing that she liked to "play Mrs. Riddle."
The same issue of the News-letter contains a notice about "Police" Court.  It seems Police Court was a separate entity from Summary Court, in that "minor offenders can be brought before it by an officer of the Village who has 'police' powers."  On the prior Friday evening, Judge Wickes heard eight cases, six of them involving "walking on the lawns contrary to the regulations of the Commissioner of Grounds, who is empowered by the ordinance of the Council to make such rules."  The six miscreants were all convicted and sentenced to between two and four hours of hard labor.  The other two offenders were charged with failure to be in bed after ten, one of them having "played his radio."  The News-letter did not report their sentences, if any.

End of Summer

Once again, a summer has slipped through my fingers before knew it, and as usual I have done less than half of what I set out to do.  To be fair, it has been a good summer, and I have accomplished quite a bit; I was killed three times at the 150th anniversary Battle of (1st) Bull Run, I have thoroughly re-vamped the A.P. World course, I have completed at least one small carpentry project, I have visited The County (and seen a moose), and I have paddled extensively on Sheepscot Lake and (less extensively) Penobscot Bay.
I have not, however, done nearly as much on this project as I had planned, which is why there has been no post for over a month.  I have been doing some reading and some revising of the draft I have, but I had hoped to do several more interviews.  I had great fun (and learned a great deal) chatting with Frank Leavitt '52 (see post below), and I know I need to visit with many more Avonians before I am finished.  (Frankly, I don't believe one is ever "finished" with a project such as this; at some point, you write things up and publish them, but you could go right back to work the next day...)
I hope things will pick up a bit in the fall.  I'll be busy at school of course, but there a number of people in and around Avon for me to interview, and The Avonian is, I believe, about to let the school community know about this project and invite people to submit material (perhaps you found this blog because of The Avonian).  Thus, I hope during my "free time" this year to be awash in vignettes, anecdotes, reminiscences, and stories submitted by alumni, faculty, and friends of the school.  (By the way, you can submit your own stories using http://www.avonoldfarms.com/history, the comment function of this blog, email, snail mail, or the Pony Express, but by all means let me know if you have something to share.)
I am always sorry to see the summer end, and it is downright painful to leave Maine, but I find I am already excited about the school year to come; for those of us in education, the fall is like a second spring - a season of renewal filled with enthusiasm and optimism.  Time to get started...

Butch Leavitt

A wonderful interview this morning and afternoon with Frank "Butch" Leavitt '52, alumnus, science teacher, Director of Admissions - even "faculty brat."  That last title is not true in the strictest sense, but Frank and his family lived on campus starting in the summer of '47, before the school re-opened.  When it did re-open, Frank's parents were among the few non-school families allowed to remain, so he had the experience of living on campus before enrolling and then being a student whose parents were right there.  Sounds like the faculty brat experience to me.  When the school re-opened, Frank's family moved to third floor of an Elephant annex, somehow getting his mother's Baby Grand Piano up there; the main hallway did not have rooms yet - Wlbur Durfee and crew would see to that - so there were music classes in what is now Elephant 3 using Mrs. Leavitt's piano.  Frank also reminisced about crew at Avon.  He was a student before interscholastic athletics were officially allowed, so he was coxswain for the Diogenes 1st boat (and the bow oar on Dio's 2nd boat), but their coach managed to arrange for Avon boys to race other schools from time to time.  Frank recalled that another alumnus once could not remember whether they had won a particular race, but Frank knew they had won - he remembers getting thrown in!  [Crew tradition calls for the winning crew to throw their coxswain into the water after the race.]

 Frank, who had gone on to Dartmouth, was just settling in to a career in geology when he returned to Avon to attend the funeral of General Caldwell, who had been very influential in Frank's years as a student.  After the funeral, Don Pierpont invited Frank to chat in the garden behind Don's house and asked if he would like to come and teach.  There were a number of reasons for Frank to say yes, a prime one being that his good friend Seth Mendell '52 would be teaching history at Avon, but he had been enjoying his geological work...  One wonders just how many careers took a sudden and unexpected turn in Don Pierpont's garden; if I am not mistaken, Sid Clark, too, was won over in that spot.
It was great to see Frank and spend some time with him; his passion for the school is as strong as it ever was.

Rationing

We spent the last few days on Islesboro, at the summer home of Founder's Era history teacher John S. Custer, a.k.a. "Grampa."  (We also had occasion to walk by science teacher Holland Sperry's house on our way down to the cove.)  I had hoped to come across some resource that would help with this project - a notebook labelled "My Thoughts About Working at Avon" would have been about right.  No such luck, but we did have fun going through massive photo albums and scrap books.  This image fell out of one of them - certainly a familiar scene for Avonians who have been in the Quad houses or the corner classrooms.

I learned that Grampa had been a tennis "ace" in his day, that he was teaching at the University of Wisconsin while earning his PhD, and that he taught at Lawrence College in Wisconsin, where my mother would later enroll.  I also confirmed that when he left Avon in 1944 he became Acting Headmaster at The Gunnery.  The stroll down memory lane also reminded me of a story involving Grampa, Avon, and Islesboro.  It seems that during World War II those in charge of gas rationing would make exceptions for people with long commutes.  So Grampa went to the Rationing Board and announced that he lived at Islesboro, Maine and worked at Avon, Connecticut and thus would need some extra gas.  When they stopped laughing, he added that he only needed to commute once a year, so if he could have the gas necessary for that trip in June and again in August, he would not require any other gas during the year.  It worked!

The Political Process

In the Founder's Era, the student government was very active.  Indeed, the student government levied taxes on the students, and, as you might expect, said taxes were frequently a topic of discussion at Town Meetings.  In the February, '35 Town Meeting, one enterprising student asked why the faculty was not also taxed (it turns out the students lacked the authority to tax the faculty).  Next came a question about a luxury tax on victrolas and crystal sets, with one student pointing out that crystal sets did not use electricity as radios did.  This led to a discussion of the purpose of the taxes and the uses to which the collected funds were put.  The Avon Weekly News-letter's account of the discussion concludes as follows: “It further came out in the discussion that some of the radio license fees was used for restocking the streams on the estate with fish, which prompted Grisom Bettle to spout the following surprising bit: ‘What if the boys with radios and crystal sets don’t like to eat fish?‘  Frankly, no one knew."   

Frustration

With the boys having gone home for the summer over two weeks ago, one might think I would now be able to devote many of my waking hours to this project.  Not so much.  Two late defections from the faculty and some other more routine work have so far conspired to keep me focused primarily on next year at school rather than the many years that have gone before.  That seems likely to remain unchanged for at least another week, but I do hope to begin injecting interviews into my schedule.  I have spent some of the last week reviewing the Alumni Weekend tapes and being reminded that I did get some good information from those.  That information continues to flow, in fact, as at least one alumnus has embraced the notion of sending email messages with his reminiscences. 
Today, after weeks of intending to do so, I finally got over to Hill-Stead.  Granddad and I took the tour, which was very interesting.  I was struck again by Mr. Pope's incredible art collection.  Monet, Manet, Whistler, Degas, Cassatt - and that is just paintings!  I did not see the fly-in-amber which my God-father, Brooks Shepard, remembered from his visits to Hill-Stead as a child and as a student at Yale (and which I thought I remembered from earlier tours).  When I asked the tour guide about it, she was so distracted by the notion that I knew someone related to TPR that she lost track of the actual question.  My other question was about a pair of portraits in the dining room - almost the only pieces of art the tour guide did not initially identify.  It turns out they are of TPR's paternal grandparents, Alton and Theodate Pope; I asked because huge portraits of the couple adorn one of the walls of the refectory, and I had forgotten who they were.  The school is not featured prominently in the tour, but the guide did point out pictures of TPR on site during construction, talk about the nature of the architecture, and mention that AOF cntinues to function as a secondary school for boys.
If you have not yet done so, get over to see Hill-Stead.

Alumni Weekend

With alumni returning en masse this weekend to celebrate various reunions, I have been able to conduct a few interviews and make some connections that will be important to this project.  Particularly fruitful was the gathering of the 50th reunion class - 1961 - along with some alumni from earlier classes.  The '61 group shared a number of stories about Don Pierpont.  One of my favorites concerned some boys who lived in Eagle.  One of them had the room that overlooks the headmaster's back yard, and these boys had a rope ladder that they used to descend into Don Pierpont's rather substantial gardens for the purpose of indulging in a cigarette or two.  (The provost's garden is an interesting choice of venue, is it not, for schoolboys looking to engage in clandestine smoking!)  One evening, as the boys, who had been discussing the provost and using a favorite derisive nickname, prepared to climb back to their window, they heard a familiar voice say "I hope you are sure those cigarettes are out"!  Of course, like almost any story involving Don Pierpont, it ends with Don taking the boys to HoJo's.  There was a Howards Johnson's on the north side of Route 44 in those days, and that is where Pierpont held court. 
Another story that will certainly get into the book is that Don Pierpont used to write a quotation from Chaucer, "follow your ghost," in students' yearbooks.  I've decided to have each chapter title include a quotation - Mrs. Riddle's is "By their fruits, ye shall know them - and it will be difficult to find a more appropriate quotation for Don Pierpont than "follow your ghost."
There was also a story from a member of the class of '42 who chanced to meet a blinded veteran who had come to the Old Farms Convalescent Hospital and said that the people there had restored his will to live.  Chalk that up as a vote in favor of including a substantial chapter on the Convalescent Hospital.

Put 'em in the stocks!

Shortly after spring break, Ken LaRocque sent over a copy of the school history of Fountain Valley school in Colorado Springs.  Fountain Valley is where Avon's first provost, Francis Froelicher, went when he left Avon.  Several members of the first faculty, which resigned en masse, followed him there.  That history has a very different account of the reason for Froelicher's departure from Avon.  It claims the Froelicher and TPR parted ways when TPR, convinced that discipline was lacking under Froelicker, instructed him to build pillory stocks, the punishment apparatus by which a person was immobilized in a wooden device that secured his hands and head, on campus.  Froelicher, so the story goes, refused of course, and was then shocked to find that TPR had instructed a carpenter to build the stocks anyway.  The history - I think the title is They Wrote Their Own Histories, but I have loaned it to Tim - goes on to report that TPR then summarily dismissed Froelicher during a vacation, not even allowing him to return to campus to gather his things (on this last point it quotes a Froelicher daughter).

This is certainly a juicy story, and it fits in with the image of a TPR who would have rose bushes planted upside-down or chloroform a recalcitrant cat.  I have not, though, come across any other references to pillory stocks on the Avon campus, and the idea runs contrary to a number of stories that underscore TPR's rather generous nature where students were concerned.  Of course, if I were writing the history of Fountain Valley, I would much prefer this story to one that suggests the school's first headmaster - Froelicher was first at Fountain Valley, too - had left his previous job because of his binge drinking.

Sorry for the length of time between posts; it is a hectic time at school (the only times that are not hectic are the vacations), and I have done nothing for this project since the resumption of classes.  However, I am making plans to interview alumni as they come through for the various events taking place in the next several weeks, so I hope to be gathering valuable insight - and entertaining stories - about every era in the school's history.

Milestone of Sorts

So I have completed the draft of "The Founder and Her Era," which takes the history of the school through its closing in '44 and TPR's death in '46.  The central story of the chapter in its present form is (once the school opened) the turmoil between TPR and the people she hired to run the school, and it poses the question "Was TPR an eccentric, meddling founder whose interference nearly drove her school to ruin?"  As is suggested in the last post, my answer is no - I think she was eccentric to a degree, and she definitely wanted to have a say in the operation of her school, but I think people finding that unusual or offensive is more sexist than anything else.
The draft is just over 7,200 words, which suggests to me that The History Press word window of 40-45,000 is probably pretty close.  My guess is that the final version of the chapter will be close to 10,000 words, and chapters on the Pierpont, Trautman, and LaRocque eras will be similar in length.  I have not yet decided what to do with the Old Farms Convalescent Hospital, but there seems to be plenty of material, and certainly that chapter would be significantly shorter.
The reason I think there are another 2,800 words coming for "The Founder and Her Era" is that there is much that is still missing.  I have not yet really thought - or consulted with others - about what needs to be in the chapter, but the current draft, for example, does not mention the Nimrod Club, and it only briefly mentions Verne Priest, the Maine woodsman who help manage the woods on the estate.  To this point, I think only two students are mentioned.  I have not yet formally interviewed anyone, and I have not even finished going through the Weekly News-letter.  Thus, there is a wealth of information about the students and the goings-on of the Founder's Era that I'll have to weave into future drafts.
It is important to me that I do a good job with this period, as the next school historian, working perhaps on the centennial in 2027, will not have the access I do to living memories of the era.  (To a lesser but nonetheless still significant extent, the same may be true of the Pierpont years.)
It does feel good to have reached a milestone of sorts; now at least the "book" is not entirely theoretical.

Names

So the writing is going far more slowly than I had hoped.  I am about 2000 words in, and have covered TPR through the design and building of the school.  I did find that the Lusitania fit in nicely, and I have decided to ignore TPR's interest in psychical research.  Not sure I can get away with that decision; the Avon Weekly News-letter for June of '34 contains a note about the Avon Society for Psychical Research taking a recess for the summer.  Was this an unkind shot at TPR?  If so, did Pete know it (he says he found the note on his desk)?  Just one of a growing list of questions for Pete when next I see him.
In the meantime, I continue to struggle with what to call TPR.  I have been using "Theo" and "Theodate" to this point, but in nearly thirty years at AOF I have never seen or heard her referred to as anything other than either "Theodate Pope Riddle" or "Mrs. Riddle."  Of course, my other choices are "Effie," which is the name her parents chose, and "Miss Theodate," which is what the workmen called her, though not to her face.  My first inclination was to use Theo and Theodate, as her biographer does, until I reached the opening of school in '27, and then to use "Mrs. Riddle," as is the custom at school.  In this century, though, it seems a bit demeaning to define a person in terms of her husband.  I will resist here (and I think in the book) the impulse to comment on TPR's relationship with JWR and the nature of their marriage; even if it was ideal, it is still sexist to define her first and foremost as his wife.  Indeed, TPR fought sexism throughout her career; architecture was a man's world in the first half of the twentieth century.  Dearest of Geniuses begins with the story of the Nugent Publishing Company refusing to include her as planned in a book of prominent New York architects and their work - now that they had discovered she was a woman.  That was in 1915; in 1919, when TPR asked the American Institute of Architects to use her maiden name (because it was her professional name), they ignored the request and listed her as "Theodate Pope Riddle."  I am increasingly of the opinion that much of TPR's reputation for being eccentric and difficult to work with - though she was certainly both, to some degree - was a sexist response to her being a woman with the temerity to take her place in a man's profession and then to insist that she have a voice in the operation of the school she designed, built, and financed.  All that is a long-winded way of saying I am not very comfortable with "Mrs. Riddle" as the name of choice for the book.  I think I will continue using both Theodate and Theo and then see how that reads once the chapter is drafted.  (Presumably, TPR won't come up as frequently in the other chapters.)

Under Way

So I have finally started writing the actual book; I 've drafted about one page of the opening chapter, which is tentatively called "The Founder and Her Era."  I decided to open with the vignette about TPR stepping over the rattlesnake to hide it from her mother lest she decide not to move to Farmington.  I think it is a pretty cool story in its own right, and it illustrates an attribute - resolve, determination, whatever you want to call it - that is central to TPR's character and story. 
To get the school involved quickly, I turned to the notion that TPR said "I will build an indestructible school for boys" on her first night as a student at Miss Porter's.  Next up will be a summary of TPR's architectural studies and her early commissions, followed by the early preparations for building the school.
This plan begs at least two questions.  First, when and how do I work in the Lusitania?  That obviously is a pivotal moment in TPR's life and I need/want to debunk the whole she-woke-up-in-a-Cotswold-village thing.  It won't be hard, I think, but I can't see right now how it fits into the outline.  The second question is what to do with TPR's avid interest in Psychical Research (which is what prompted her to get on the Lusitania).  I cannot escape - and I have no interest in escaping - TPR's eccentricities (I'm opening with her hiding a poisonous snake under her skirts; clearly she was an unusual person), but I am not sure how far down that path to wander.  This is, after all, a history of the school, not a biography of its founder. 

Snake Found!

It turns out MacLeish's Texas Bull Snake - "Ozzie" - stayed out of sight for over a month but then turned up in the quad between classes on a Wednesday in late May.  Ozzie was shedding when he was found, and Pete reports that "it was carried off in Triumph to the lab, from which, it is hoped, it will never escape."

Update

In case you were wondering, The History Press did send a contract a while back, but the editor and I agreed to put off signing it for a while.  I was concerned that it has specific due dates and word count windows, and I suggested we wait until I had a draft of the Founder's Era chapter done - the theory being that writing that draft will give me a much better idea of how long the book might be and of how long it will take to write it. 
In the meantime, speculation has it that the four May, 1934 forest fires on the estate were caused by careless horseback riders throwing cigarettes into the dry grass by the sides of the trails.  Fortunately, there were boys on the tower (Dio tower? the water tower?) doing fire-guard duty; when they sounded the alarm, other boys raced to the scenes of the fires and put them out before they spread too far.

Censored!

The archives have two versions of the first page of April 29th, 1934's issue of The Avon Weekly News-letter.  On the first of them, Pete has written "Censored" across an article that does not appear on the second of them.  It seems Kenneth MacLeish's six foot Texas Bull Snake had suffered a fractured rib and so had been illegally smuggled into the dorm to recuperate.  The snake then got out, went behind the radiators, and disappeared into a gap in the wall.  As of the first writing, he had not yet been found.  It is easy to imagine how the notion that a six-foot snake was loose in the dorm might unnerve some students - indeed, the April 15th issue of the News-letter (which reported the snake's initial arrival at school) contains a cartoon depicting a terrified student who has awakened to find a snake on his lap.  The caption reads: We might wake up some time in the night and see.. A snake devour a branch of the family tree..  If censoring the newsletter was an attempt to keep the students in the dark, it failed; the boys who went to Hartford that week found a full report in the Hartford Times, and there was a subsequent notice in the New York Herald Tribune. 
Perhaps the whole thing was a spoof and that is why Pete was not allowed to run it; perhaps Avon, like Hogwarts, has a giant snake living within the walls...

Update

As predicted, it is extremely difficult to carve out time for this project during school, especially these last few weeks of exams, comment-writing, etc.  The approaching Long Weekend does not offer much solace, inasmuch as I have a conference in Boston and need to prep about five weeks of A.P. World.
Still, there is news.  At its winter meeting, the Board approved the project, which means it is now "official."  I believe The History Press will be offering a formal contract, which would make things really official, but I have no idea at present what the nature of that contract will be.  I will be moving ahead prior to Spring Break in March; I simply cannot wait that long to get back to the Weekly News-Letter, and it may be that I'll be able to conduct an interview or two in February.  I do hope so.

The Avon Weekly News-Letter

When Pete Seeger '36 found supplementing his allowance by shining shoes to be "slow going," he discovered that the school would let him use the mimeograph machine, and The Avon Weekly News-Letter was born.  Pete produced the News-Letter from January of '34 through his graduation in '36, and the school archives contains bound copies of every issue.  In a hand-written note at the start of the first volume, he explains that he has since heard the News-Letter was the reason TPR kept renewing his scholarship, "Mrs. Riddle liked my little paper, giving her informal news of the boys at school - whereas she probably only got formal reports from Dr. Kammerer."
There was a lot going on at school in the '30s, and none of it escaped Pete's attention.  The second paragraph of the first issue lists the five students, both Custer brothers among them, who came down with chicken pox during the Christmas holiday; he goes on to observe that Kunau is in the infirmary with a twisted knee.  The most striking aspect of the first few issues is the number of animals on campus; Pete reports on a hog the biology department is planning to slaughter, a bunch of pheasants, a flying squirrel, ten ducks and an unspecified number of rabbits.  A student who could not return - John Ferry - arranged for agents - Peters and Burns - to sell his goat, pheasants, guinea hens, tropical fishes, chickens, and ducks, "and at surprisingly low prices."
In three weeks, Pete mentions two trips into Hartford to hear speakers, the county farm bureau's annual field day, the school's maple sugaring operation, the presence of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the literary club, the music club, the Glee Club, a polo match against the Yale freshmen (an excellent team, they spotted Avon ten points and won anyway), and intra-mural sports such as fencing and jiu-jitsu.  There was even a student - Jack Downing - who supplemented his allowance by providing a later breakfast on Sunday mornings in the science lab.  "Coffee, waffles, and maple syrup or honey for .25 at ten-thirty in the morning.”
As the last of the January, 1934 issues ends, Pete reports a certain amount of trepidation about February 1st, when a new rule mandating hand-tied bow ties at dinner was to take effect.

Twilight Zone

Among my Christmas gifts was a beautiful, somewhat antique desk with lots of drawers and cubby holes and a tall cabinet.  So I decided the shelves in the cabinet would be an appropriate place for some of our elderly books, especially Dad's many volumes of the Yale Shakespeare.  As I was putting them on the shelves, I noticed that several of them were edited by Robert French of Yale's English department.  It struck me that this same Robert French was once offered the position of Provost at Avon Old Farms.  He was working at Yale, was offered and tentatively accepted the position at Avon, then changed his mind and accepted a promotion at Yale.  As so many had, he cited the existence of the Aide to the Provost/Master of Detail in explaining his reluctance to come to Avon.  It is hardly surprising that something in our house would be connected in some way to the history of the school, but now I wonder if there is anything here that isn't.