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."