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.