Boar's Head

We had what we believe to be the 59th annual Boar's Head Festival on Tuesday last, and it got me thinking about Boar's Heads past.  My first was in 1982, and Chandra Narsipur and I were asked to assist Brad Mason, the director.  Not much has changed since then.  The two biggest changes are an infusion of more music and the "torches."  There were no Riddlers to perform in those days, so Brad himself sang "O Holy Night" at one point.  (Brad was a veteran of Broadway, and his rendition was quite beautiful.)  As for the torches, several years ago we finally stopped tempting fate and replaced the torches with the big Refectory candles.  The effect is not quite the same, but I don't miss the smoke or the potential for unmitigated disaster.  (Bill Kron used to seek me out and shake my hand shortly after the last torch was extinguished...)
My own favorite Boar's Head memory is not from the pageant itself; it is of Seth Mendell recounting the Boar's Head Tale at morning meeting.  Not many people can spin a yarn as Seth can, and his rendition was always one of the highlights of the year.  Now, of course, I am able to enjoy that tradition from the other side, and each year I can't wait to hear "How dry was it?!"
If you have your own Boar's Head Memories, share them using the survey to the right.  Boar's Head has a prominent place in the school's history, and it would be nice to have a few more Boar's Head Tales...

Refectory Supervision

I encountered Jock Davenport '59 at breakfast on Saturday (he was on campus for the meeting of the National Council), and we shared stories about Refectory supervision.  Jock said that when he was in school he heard stories about dinner during the Founder's Era.  Founder's Era students, of course, came to dinner more formally attired than any of their successors.  In Jock's day, the rumor was that the suit required during the Founder's Era was the same as that worn at Eton and that every night there was a shadowy caped figure on the balcony wielding binoculars.  This person was responsible for spotting and reporting any sartorial miscues the boys might have committed.  (This seems unlikely, but stranger things have happened.)
I asked Jock if he was aware of Don Pierpont's exceptional hearing.  It seems Don had an uncanny ability to discern what mischief the boys were up to and cut them off at the pass.  What the students did not know (at the time) was that Don's hearing was extremely good, and he would sit at the head table during meals and eavesdrop on the conversations going on at the nearest row of tables.  Thus it appears possible that Avonians, through the school's early years, could hardly take a meal without being subject to covert observation or eavesdropping!
Actually, breakfast was fertile ground for school history conversation last week.  Earlier in the week, Jonathan Crocker recounted his father's (student in the '28-'29 school year) memory that TPR might burst into a classroom and abscond with all the students for some project dear to her heart.  This is very interesting to me in that it is the first such story I have heard.  The Founder's Era alumni I've met do not remember seeing much of TPR, and I know that she and John Riddled traveled to Europe during the school's first year specifically to be out of the way.  On the other hand, it does sound like TPR ...

Board of Correlation?

A question that remains even after all this time is to what extent did TPR involve herself in the operation of the school.  It is abundantly clear that some people both inside and outside the community were under the impression that TPR was guilty of excessive meddling in the affairs of the school and that her meddling was responsible for the departure of three provosts and two entire faculties, the last of which led to the school's closing in 1944.  The Hartford Courant, after all, listed the "attitude of Mrs. Riddle" in its headline announcing the 1930 faculty departure, and Cal Magruder '46 reports that most of the community thought a conflict between TPR and Brook Stabler had brought about the closing.
Finding actual evidence of TPR's meddling, however, proves to be more elusive.  We do know she went to some lengths to instruct the school's telephone operator as to the correct pronunciation of "Avon," and we do know she insisted on an administrative structure that proved unpopular with both Provosts and candidates for Provost.  [The problem was the existence of a person - first Master of Detail and then Aide to the Provost - with primary responsibility for the non-academic aspects of the school.]  On the other hand, we also know that she and John Wallace Riddle traveled to Europe for most of the school's first year of operation, largely to be out of Provost Froelicher's way, and that TPR was not on campus on a regular basis once the school opened.  Indeed, Cal Magruder remembers meeting her only once during his two years at school.
This is why I am intrigued by a note in the December 3, 1935 issue of the Weekly News-letter about a meeting of the "Board of Correlation" that had take place in the prior week.  The Board had decided to reject the Comptroller's suggestion that community service boys might do clerical work; the Board's thinking was that it was better for the boys, who had been in class all morning, to be outdoors as much as possible in the afternoon and that having boys do clerical work would mean removing them from the helpful work they were already doing.  It seems like a routine and reasonable decision, but I find it intriguing because with its usual thoroughness the Weekly News-letter lists all the members of the Board of Correlation: Mrs. Riddle, Dr. Kammerer, Commander Hunter (Aide), and four other men.  This is the first time I have come across the Board of Correlation, but any committee that includes the Founder (and benefactor) and the two top administrators is necessarily a committee of consequence.

Inadvertent Assist

Calvert Magruder '46

I had a great chat with Calvert Magruder '46 last week.  If the "'46" looks off, it is because the school closed in 1944, and Cal and his schoolmates were left to find other places to finish up.  Nonetheless, he is a member of the class of '46, and he does have his Avon diploma, thanks to this ceremony at commencement, 2006.
As Cal told us at that Commencement, the '44 Avonians read of the school's imminent closing in newspapers while many of them were on the train leaving for spring break.  He reports that the community saw the closing as a result of a clash between TPR and Brooke Stabler, with a vast majority of students and faculty sympathetic to Stabler.  Students had heard TPR insisted that Mr. Thayer, who was in charge of discipline, be responsible to her and not to Stabler.  The students, he said, saw TPR as the bete noir of the whole situation.  Magruder himself did not see much of TPR in his two years at Avon; he remembers being introduced to her at a pre-dance reception at the Provost's house, but he does not recall seeing her on campus on any other occasion, nor does he recall ever going over to Hill-Stead.  He did hear some of the common TPR myths - that she had been on a ship that sank and was inspired by that experience to build AOF and that the design of the Refectory is the result of a TPR dream that she was in Valhalla.   He had also heard that the Refectory had been torn down when only half built, then re-built more to TPR's liking.
Cal remembered fondly some of his teachers - he mentioned Mr Thayer (for English,  not discipline), Mr. Bates (Music), and Mr. Fraser (French) in particular.  He also mentioned Dr. Custer, whom Cal considers part of the inspiration for his own distinguished career as a history teacher.  He remembers admiring the gallant Russian stand at Stalingrad in '42, which he learned of through Dr. Custer's weekly current events update.  He mentioned a number of fellow students; first and foremost was Dave Stanley '43, whom he describes as "one of the best guys ever to come out of our school."   Stanley was killed when his ship was hit and (it was carrying ammunition) exploded.  Cal remembers Provost Stabler announcing Stanley's death in chapel and is still, nearly seventy years on, clearly moved by the story.  He also mentioned Chris Magee, younger brother of John Gillespie Magee, Ben Byers, and Jim Storer.
Cal, Joe German and and one other student spent his first year at school constructing an elaborate tree house complete with a pulley system that employed a counter-balance stone taken from the quarry.  When they returned the next year, they found the tree had been cut down and the tree house was gone.  Cal suspects it was Verne Priest who cut down the tree, but no one ever said anything to him about it.
In those days, there was a Halloween tradition of initiating new students which today would be classified as hazing (paddles were involved), but which ended (in '42) with a showing of Gone With the Wind in the Refectory.
Along with everyone else from the era, Cal refers to the quad buildings by number rather than name.  #1 building was what we call Diogenes, Pelican was #2 and so on.  This would, of course, explain the numbering of the quad classrooms; all the rooms in Dio, for example, begin with "1."  It seems odd that the Founder's Era folks would not have embraced the statues atop the quad buildings as names for the buildings themselves.  They did, after all, adopt Diogenes and Eagle as the names of the two intramural teams.
Cal was a member of the Diogenes team and recalls how the '43-'44 championship was decided. It seems the Eagles had won for a few years in a row, and in the spring of '44 it all came down to the last baseball game.  Cal was not on the Dio baseball team, but he was doing some community service near the field.  Late in the game, a pitch got past the Eagles catcher and rolled to Cal.  Automatically, he picked up the ball and tossed it to the catcher, who promptly threw out a base runner!  The Eagle team won the game and the overall title for that year.  Cal feels as though the fact that the school was about to close may have saved him a great deal of grief from his Diogenes teammates.

Images

Every time we head to the Brown Auditorium, we pass by the picture above, which is of the Glee Club at some point in the early forties.  At one point, I remembered seeing the 2010 Riddlers head into the Refectory for a picture-taking session, and I began to wonder whether they had re-created this image.  As it turns out, they had not; the pictures they took have the tapestries as background.

Nonetheless, I am currently in favor of using a juxtaposition these images as a central image (book cover, web page background, etc.) for Semblance of Permanence.  I'd prefer, of course, that the modern picture more closely resemble the older one, but we cannot reconvene the 40s Glee Club, and there is an argument for using these Riddlers rather than making a new version with the 2013 Riddlers.  That argument, of course, is that the singer second from the left in the top row of the 40s Glee Club (Ed Custer '43) is the grandfather of the one fifth from the right in the top row of the 2010 Riddlers (Ben Custer '10).   Adding to the air of permanence, both of them were faculty brats who grew up on campus and whose fathers taught history.  As a historian with a long connection to AOF, I have seen this sort of "permanence" many times; sons and grandsons of alumni becoming friends just as their fathers and grandfathers were, etc.  I suspect that by "permanence" TPR meant the architecture and the character of the place, but I think the people aspect is important as well.

This summer, I have been playing around with the idea of creating this work as an iBook, and I have created a "cover" which has the two pictures juxtaposed as above with "Semblance of Permanence" in between.  If it is possible to share that image in this venue, it is well beyond my abilities, but I think it looks good.

While on the subject of images, I should also explain the origins of the image at the head of this blog - TPR somehow in the midst of a Refectory chandelier.  A few years ago, I was putting together a PowerPoint for use in the background at hiring fairs - just a series of images that give a sense of AOF.  Lacking an image of TPR, I attempted to capture one from one of the school's videos; the video faded from the Refectory chandelier to TPR, and I pulled the trigger before the transition was complete.  I have always liked the result; initially, I thought it was vaguely ethereal, but in the light of TPR's interest in parapsychology, it seems particularly apropos.

More On Francis Froelicher

David Lavender's (author of They Wrote Their Own Histories - Fountain Valley School's First 70 Years) chapter on Francis Froelicher's tenure as headmaster at FVS is an interesting read for a student of Avon's history.  As I mentioned in the last post, I (perhaps unfairly) got the sense that one was meant to conclude that Froelicher's views on education were too progressive for TPR, and that is part of why he left Avon so quickly and abruptly.  Of course, a historian of FVS would have no further interest in TPR or in the school Froelicher left behind, but Lavender describes an FVS that was, under Froelicher, if anything less progressive in its approach than Avon Old Farms in the same era.  He does not describe the academic program in great detail, except to report the one person connected to both schools wrote to another "they are re-creating Avon out West."  In some ways, though, the schools were very different; FVS students'  rooms were cleaned by maids, and servants, rather than other students waited on them in the refectory (yes, they did call it that).  Indeed, FVS students did not have a work program, or formal "chores," until World War II decimated the work force available to them in Colorado Springs.  This despite the fact that there was a working ranch associated with the school.  Throughout that period, the student council at FVS sought ways to be relevant, while at Avon the council actually governed, levying taxes and making and enforcing rules.
On the other hand, there were some interesting parallels in Froelicher's tenures at the two schools.  He was at FVS for ten times as long as he was at Avon, of course, but there, too, he was able to run the school secure in the knowledge that any deficit would be covered by a single benefactor.  As at Avon, the benefactor was a woman, but at FVS she had neither founded the school nor designed its buildings.  He also left FVS abruptly, "resigning" in December of 1950 and not returning when Christmas vacation ended.  Lavender reports that there are no minutes from the board meetings that led to Froelicher's dismissal (and when Lanvender undertook his history, only two members of that board remained alive), but complaints included the deficits and lax discipline at school.  For Avonians, the most telling sentence reads: "Some were aware that he may have had a drinking problem."  Lavender goes on to say that one of the two surviving board members "insists that the problem had absolutely nothing to do with his resignation."
Whether or not his drinking cost Francis Froelicher his job at FVS, as it had his job at Avon, the fact remains that he guided the school from its opening through its first twenty years, which years included the Second World War.  His views on education and his vision for his school inspired TPR and Betty Hare (of FVS) to believe in him and six members of the faculty (a majority) to follow him from Avon, Connecticut to Colorado Springs, Colorado.  When Froelicher died ten years after leaving FVS, C. Dwight Perry, senior master who had become interim head when Froelicher departed, said of him: "In his colleagues he demanded intellectual curiosity and honesty; from them he got admiration and loyalty.  He loved books and mountains, music and poetry.  He was attracted to plain people and great minds.  He gave short shrift to superficial thinking and to social sham."

Francis Froelicher, Avon, and Fountain Valley School

I have decided to read a few other schools' histories this summer so as to get a better sense of the genre.  I am starting with They Wrote Their Own Histories - Fountain Valley School's First 70 Years because I have it on hand and because Fountain Valley's first headmaster and a substantial percentage of its first faculty had come from Avon.  Only about a third of the way through the first chapter, which describes the founding of the school and the tenure of Francis Froelicher, its first headmaster (and Avon's first provost), I have again encountered the FVS version of Froelicher's departure from Avon.  You might remember from my April '11 post Put 'Em in the Stocks that the author of They Wrote Their Own Histories, David Lavender, suggests that Froelicher and TPR parted ways over her insistence that pillory stocks be erected on campus for the purpose of punishing recalcitrant boys!  Lavender also describes Avon as "one of the strangest (schools) ever established," and tells of Froelicher's  progressive views on education in such a way as to allow the reader to conclude TPR did not share them.  In reviewing the earlier post, I realize I did not spend a great deal of time debunking this ridiculous story, but I did mention the explanation TPR's biographer Sandra Katz gives for Froelicher's departure, namely that his heavy drinking was interfering with his work.  I will not explore that much further here, except to say that the record makes clear that TPR's approach to education was at least as progressive as Froelicher's, so that while pillory stocks would have fit in well with TPR's Cotswold village, they would not fit at all with her philosophy of education.  (It is interesting to note that when Froelicher was forced out by FVS's board after 20 years, his being too lenient with bad boys was among the complaints.  There is no mention of the board's wanting to erect stocks on campus.)
They Wrote Their Own Histories does make clear, though, that Avon paid a price for the TPR-Frolicher rift.  Of course, the primary price came in the mass resignation of the faculty in 1930, six of whom followed Froelicher to Fountain Valley.  Beyond that, FVS's first student body of 57 students included 20 who had transferred from Avon.  Perhaps most important: two of FVS's most significant early benefactors, Elizabeth Sage Hare, who, according to Lavender "alone deserves credit for the School's founding," and Ruth Hanna McCormick Simms, whose father was Mark Hanna, the underwriter of late 19th century Republican politicians, were Avon parents who sided with Froelicher when the split came (Hare going so far as to withdraw her son from Avon and board him with the Froelichers while he attended Gilman in Baltimore).  Hare and Simms were extremely generous to FVS in its early years; it seems reasonable to assume they would have been similarly generous to Avon had they not been disenchanted by Froelicher's departure.
Of course, assuming Sandra Katz is correct as to why Froelicher left Avon, these losses seem somewhat unavoidable.  One could argue various people - whether students, faculty, or potential benefactors - would have been more understanding if TPR had let the truth be known, but it is not hard to appreciate why she chose not to do so.  Even if she had been willing to see Froelicher's reputation in ruins, she could hardly have wanted the publicity that would come with acknowledging a lush had been at the helm of her fledgling school.

Class of '62; Here Pierps!

At the recent Alumni Weekend, the Class of '62 observed their 50th reunion (!), and they gathered for dinner on Friday night ...
First, Alan Rozinsky presented two gifts to the school.  On behalf of classmate Steve Myers, he delivered two of Steve's photographs (Steve is an artist/photographer, and one of the photos had appeared in Life Magazine's 1999 Best Photos issue) to the school in honor/memory of Don Pierpont and Sid Clark.  Steve wrote: "Their guidance and direction, bound together in an unlikely synthesis of methods, remains a lasting presence for all of us who received their help."  Alan's second presentation concerned Hartford radio personality Bob Steele, who graced the local airwaves for fifty years (I distinctly remember my mother sitting on a beach in Maine and discussing the tenor of Bob Steele's voice with two neighbors; I thought it odd at first, but then I realized all three lived in Connecticut during the year; this was probably in the late 60s).  Bob's son Phil has collected and published a series of scrapbooks that chronicle Bob's career, and Alan and Bobbie have donated a set to the school for use in the library and by the history department.  They constitute a phenomenal resource for Hartford area history, and I can envision them getting much use by students as they "practice" history.
Not surprisingly, one of the better stories came from George Seifert.  Don Pierpont had arranged for George to go to Parson's College, where Don was on the Board of Directors.  When he got there, George adopted a St. Bernard puppy, which he named after Don.  One day, when George was in class and his friends were exercising the dog, Don arrived for a board meeting and was confounded to hear a group of college students yelling for "Pierps"!

Rhymes With "Have On"

Singing Group from Early 40s

Last night at the Commencement Concert, and last week at the Reunion Concert, the boys sang a song - I do not have the title - that had been popular with the Avon Heirs, which was the singing group in the 50s and 60s.  The song sounds very much like a traditional "fight song," but "Avon" is pronounced in the Founder's Era way, which is to say it rhymes with "have on."  This leads to the question: when did Avonians begin to pronounce "Avon" as we now do (rhymes with "wave on")?  I have always assumed the change took place as the school re-opened in 1948, and indeed Alan Rozinsky '62 remembers the song being sung one way while the name was pronounced the other way.  Perhaps the song was originally written and performed in the Founder's Era, and the Avon Heirs wanted to be true to the original.  Perhaps the group pictured here had it in their repertoire.
Or perhaps Mrs. Riddle's "Avon" lived on into the 50s, changing over slowly until the current "Avon" won the day.

Coincidences

The other day, Alan Rozinsky '62, who with his wife Bobbie is soon to retire to Florida, ending decades of residence on campus and two teaching careers so illustrious they have recently been honored with the Alumni Order of Old Farms, handed me an envelope.  Among the things in it was a tribute to legendary English teacher Sid Clark written by one of his former students, Thomas Steinbeck.  Steinbeck tells the story of over-hearing Mr. Clark say to a stranger who had seemed to question the wisdom of Sid's career choice: "I'm always deeply impressed with those people who can see what is before them; happily I've always been blessed with the ability to see all the rest."

Young Thom was so taken by that statement that he wrote it in bold on the inside cover of his binder during French class.  Years later, when Thom had written a draft of a play, he presented to his father for his review, bound in that same AOF binder.  The father's first question was not about the play but about the quotation inscribed in the binder.  When Thom related the origin of the inscription, his father said "I know Sidney Clark.  He was your English teacher," and headed for his own voluminous library.  Soon, Thom's father produced a dusty tome and told him he would find the quotation on a certain page.  Thom soon discovered that Sid had been quoting Euclid, and the full quotation reads; "I am ever profoundly awed by those wise beings that can see plainly what stands before them.  Happily, the gods have blessed me with the ability to see all the rest."

When Thom expressed his amazement that his father could make that connection and remember the book, his father told him to check the flyleaf, where he found "a yellowing Avon Old Farms library bookplate with Sidney Clark's name written at the bottom."  It seems that Sid had loaned the book to Thom's father, who had yet to return it.  For my money, this would be an interesting story if it ended here, but by now you'll have guessed that Thom's father's name was John and that he was himself adept at turning a phrase.
So why relate this story?  Have I sacrificed the eloquence of Thom's tribute to Sid Clark in favor of an anecdote about an interesting coincidence made more interesting by the fact that one of the parties is a famous author?  To me, the story speaks to the existence of a small community of Men of Letters, of which Sid Clark was definitely a member.  It reminds me of a similar story involving a different Avon alumnus.  One of my own English teachers once told of accompanying a friend to dinner at the home of a particularly highly-regarded and long-tenured professor of English at Yale.  When after dinner the professor made a comment about the fascinating lives that words seemed to lead, my teacher knew he had once heard another of his teachers say very much the same thing.  This was the 1970s, but my teacher asked if the professor might remember a particular student who would have been at Yale just after World War II.  Despite the intervening years, the professor did remember his old student - my teacher's teacher.  He was Eddie Custer, AOF '43.

Of Hamlet, Farm Chores, Floods & Weddings

Top billing (the front page) in the March 24, 1936 issue of The Avon Weekly News-letter is split between that spring's production of Hamlet and impending wedding of school store (not yet the Hawk's Nest) employee Oscar Bohman.  Hamlet, despite keeping its audience of "nearly 190" in the Refectory for four and half hours, won rave reviews, with everyone from Mr. Whiting, who payed Hamlet, to Owre, who played (offstage) a rooster, earning plaudits.  It seems Ben Custer '10 was not the first of his family to take center stage at Avon.  Tom Custer '36 played Polonius, and his father (Ben's great-grandfather) Dr. Custer played the Ghost.  Actors and stagehands will note that some things do not change - the dress rehearsal for Hamlet lasted until 4:30 AM - and some things do - actors were allowed to sleep through the first four classes the next day!

In other news, Dr. Kammerer had announced a change in the way students would do farm work.  It seems work and school conflicted, with students on farm duty constantly racing from one place to the other, with the result that they ended up doing busywork at the farm and not learning anything about agriculture.  Under the new plan, boys were to spend "all 24 hours" at the farm on their appointed days.  Philip Schenck '30, who had been to Connecticut Agricultural College, would be on hand to "coach them in the scientific application of modern agricultural knowledge."
There was a flood on the estate that week, and according to Verne it was every bit as high as the flood of '27.  It also caused Verne to remember the sight of Mr. Iverson chasing a trout  - on horseback (Mr. Iverson was riding a horse, not the trout) during the flood of '27.
Modern Avonians will wonder at this: in the Founder's Era, there were Effort Grades in addition to the academic ones.  It seems that students who were on the Avon List (the top scholars) and had an A Effort Rating for the past several months were able to leave for spring break two days early!  If one had only one of those two distinctions - or was on the Council - one could leave a day early...

This Week in Avon History

The February 4th, 1936 issue of The Avon Weekly News-letter reminds us that student government really did some governing in the Founder's era.  The issue of the day was lateness and the Village Council's standing rule that more than ten latenesses in a week would mean the entire school must check in at Sunday breakfast.  When the newsletter came out on Tuesday, there were already eleven latenesses that week, and with the annual Mid-Winter Dance scheduled for Saturday night, the boys were hoping to be able to sleep in on Sunday.  Commander Hunter saved the day by proposing both that the new boy's lateness be forgiven (he did not yet fully appreciate the rules) and that any further lateness that week be punished with two hours hard labor, thus sparing the rest of the school an early Sunday morning.
The News-letter also reported on the Town Meeting held the previous Friday.  The Village Treasurer, Thomas Custer '36, reported that there was $231.35 in the treasury, which meant that, in the absence of a spike in breakage, there might be a general tax reduction.  Also making a report was Village Attorney Reed Estabrook '36, who would go on to spend decades as Chairman of the Board of Directors.
One student suggested the Council appoint a commission to study the problem of tent caterpillars on the Estate and how best to exterminate them.  A resolution to that effect passed unanimously, and William Whitney '36, the Warden, expressed his approval, as the solution to the tent caterpillar problem might well present an opportunity for "hard labor" to be assigned to any future late-comers.

Also in the news that week: the boys had seen a movie about - and demonstration of - "seeing eye" dogs,  the "Avon List" had been published, and it included both A. Sperry and M.L. Sperry (noteworthy in that they are science teacher Holland Sperry's two daughters Alice and Mary Lou), the Eagles and Diogenes teams had split a pair of recent hockey games, and the Thursday night fire drill was pronounced a success overall, despite a general lack of surprise.

Radio Silence

A little over a year ago, when I mentioned this project to a colleague from another school, he was quick to say - in the headmaster's presence - that the school should provide a sabbatical so I can complete it.  While I certainly never expected (or really wanted) a sabbatical, I am beginning to see his point.  It has been too long since I last made any real headway.  It has been a hectic year at school to this point.  The "Excellence in Teaching" initiative has gained some traction, but it has consumed time at a hefty clip.  (This is an initiative that puts a focus on excellence in classroom teaching; one aspect is a conscious effort to provide teachers with more specific, more meaningful feedback on their teaching, which, of course, takes time.)  Exams are under way, with grades and comments due soon, and a conference in Boston beginning tomorrow night.  Thus, I do not anticipate doing much on this project for another week or ten days.
After that, I hope to get back to conducting interviews and taking notes on the interviews I've already conducted.  So stay tuned; I haven't forgotten, and I hope to break the radio silence again soon with some interesting tidbits of Avon history.