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.
