Letters From India

My father, Eddy Custer '43, joined the American Field Service immediately after graduation and spent a year serving in India as an ambulance driver and company clerk. Throughout his travels, he wrote lengthy letters to his parents and to his older brother Tom (AOF '36). Tom's daughter Barbara recently came across a cache of these letters and sent them to my brother. In many ways, these letters are typical of any young man off to war - filled with yearning for home, affection for loved ones, stories of the wonders and the tedium of travel and then service, and constant entreaties to write letters.

This embroidered seal accompanied the letters

For some reason, it had not occurred to me until I read these letters that the "home" for which Dad was pining as he started his journey would be gone by the time he returned. In the fall of '43, there was no inkling that Avon would not go on forever, and he mentions the excellence of the fare in the Refectory and Chef Candles' magnificent Thanksgiving feast among the many things he missed.
By the time Dad returned from India, the school would be closed, and his parents would no longer live in the Diogenes apartment where he grew up. He learned of the school's fate in a March, 1944 TIME Magazine article. In May, he wrote "I still can't believe Avon is closing. It seems like a fantastic nightmare." Later in the month: "I disagree with you that there are other places in this world equally nice. Any school after Avon will seem grim to me..." 

Back to the Future: Skip Flanagan Part I

A few years ago, Henry "Skip" Flanagan re-joined the Avon faculty after a 26 year absence durning which he served as headmaster of Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio. Skip first interviewed for a job in admissions while he was still a graduate student at the University of Michigan. He did not get the admissions job, but he was so taken with the place that he let George Trautman know he was willing to do anything to get his foot in the door.  Soon he was moving his family into Pelican dorm and preparing to teach English and French, coach football and lacrosse, and - as the contract used to say - "other duties as assigned." This was in 1972, and the Flanagans would be at Avon until the spring of 1982.

Skip Flanagan

In Skip's second year at Avon, John Green, the dean of students, left to become headmaster at Rectory School in Pomfret, CT, and George asked Skip to step in as dean. (Actually it was John Green who blazed the "dean at Avon - headmaster somewhere else - return to Avon" trail; he spent several years back on campus after retiring as a headmaster.) In those days, dean of students really meant director of college counseling, and Skip has great memories of that work. This was long before the personal computer, so Skip would dictate the boys' college recommendations to Frieda Mason, wife of Brad Mason, who typed as he spoke. They would complete the recommendations for a class of 60-70 seniors during a ten day period in the early fall! Skip particularly remembers the help of Marie Delnicki, who joined the office early in his tenure as dean and who serves as registrar to this day. Marie is one of those multi-talented people who simply make things work.

When I pointed out to Skip that he and then dean of faculty Henry Pennell have now been replaced by about half a dozen people each (there are currently five administrators focused entirely on the academic program, four people - including Skip - are involved in college counseling, and three people are largely focused on residential/student life), he replied that the 70s were a simpler time in schools.  For example, he recounted simply piling the applicants to Williams College into a van and driving them to Williamstown, where they would be interviewed by the director of admissions, who would then call Skip the next day to discuss the candidates and make his decisions. That is NOT how college admissions works today!

Among the other names Skip remembers fondly from that period were Bill Kron, "the conscience of all things academic," Brad Mason, Frank Leavitt, Courtney Bird, Seth Mendell, "the consummate storyteller," and especially Sid Clark.

Skip's wife Brit Flanagan developed a good friendship with Sid (good judge of character, Brit; she also befriended Wilbur Durfee); Skip remembers returning from dorm duty at night to find Sid playing the piano (Sid's life before Avon included a stint as a professional musician). Interestingly, Skip used the term "gruff facade" to describe both Sid Clark and George Trautman. In Sid's case, he nonetheless became Skip's mentor in the English department and a lifelong friend to both Skip and Brit. In George's case, Skip says behind the gruff facade lay "a lot of caring and a big heart for those who served the school well..." Agreed.

Enough for now. Look for more from our interview in Back to the Future, Part II.

Lunch in Gettysburg

Ben Custer '10 and I are just back from a trip to Gettysburg for the 150th anniversary of the famous battle there. Beyond thwarting a rebel invasion and preserving democracy, our agenda included lunch with Fred Michel '77 at an Irish Pub in town. It was great fun to meet Fred and hear some of his stories of the Trautman era. We also, frankly, spent a great deal of time talking about the Civil War and about the history of Frederick, Maryland, where Fred lives.

With Ben Custer '10, and Fred Michel '77

I would have more to say about our conversation, but my memory has been obscured by being killed four times in as many days (yes, we spent four days reenacting a three day battle; these things take time), wearing heavy blue wool in the heat of midsummer, and so on. One aspect of the lunch I will not soon forget is Fred's generosity. He had planned to pay for lunch, but our waiter announced that Ben's and my meals had been paid for by the gentlemen at the next table. They had been at the battle that morning or the day before, and they wanted to thank us (as representatives of the reenacting community) for making it possible for them to get a sense of what had happened 150 years earlier. Fred, not to be outdone, gave the folks his card and generously offered to show them around the various points of interest in nearby Frederick. Having spoken with Fred, I know a) that there is a great deal to see in Frederick, Maryland, and b) that Fred's knowledge and enthusiasm for the area make him an ideal tour guide; I do hope the good folks took him up on the offer. In any event, it was a nice display of community/generosity on Fred's part.

Grandparents Day

If you look at the Colombian flag that hangs in the Refectory, you will see the name German Lopez on the plate - this was the first flag added to the Refectory.  On Grandparents Day, I got a chance to chat with German, who was on campus visiting his grandson Luis Jaramillo '15.  Lopez, known as "Lopey" at the time, was Warden of the class of '49, the first class to graduate after the school re-opened.

German Lopez '49 & his grandson, Luis Jaramillo '15

As Warden, German had frequent meetings in Don Pierpont's house, and German remembers Pierpont very fondly.  Other memories in include making coffee and roasting marshmallows in the working fireplace in his room, being "an item" with Frank Leavitt's older sister Carol (the Leavitt family rented space in the Quad in those days), and meetings of an elite group - was it the Order of Old Farms? - in a room upstairs in the Water Tower.  He used to babysit for the Kincaid family and once borrowed their car, fell asleep, and drove it into an apple tree!  German says the accident caused no big fuss, which I am inclined to believe given the number of crashing-the-borrowed-faculty-car stories that seem to emanate from the Pierpont years! Apparently German Lopez set the precedent.

Happy Birthday "Nails"

George Trautman turned 80 on Tuesday, April 16th.  Though George retired as headmaster over a decade ago, he is still an active member of the school community.  He does some work for the Alumni and Development office, and it is not unusual to see George at games or at Sunday brunch.
George first came to Avon in the late '60s as a member of a Visiting Committee completing a ten-year re-accreditation.  He fell in love with the school and hoped he was destined to return.  At that time, he was a member of the faculty at Tabor Academy, where he earned the nickname "Nails."  That nickname must have rung true for Avonians as well when George was hired to succeed Don Pierpont and took over as headmaster in the fall of 1969.

This portrait of George hangs in the Estabrook Board Room

George had scores of signature moments in his nearly three decades at the helm, but one of them came on Day 1, when George famously required long-haired students to get haircuts before they would be allowed to register.  "Nails" might have been one of the nicer things George was called that day!

One thing that always struck me about George was his remarkable instincts for this work.  He always seemed to know what questions would lead directly to the heart of the matter and how to respond once he got there.  At times, it almost seemed as though George had a "sixth sense."
On one such occasion, my wife woke me up in the middle of a late spring night to report odd noises emanating from the Quad.  A senior prank, perhaps?  When we looked out the window, we saw some seniors somehow hoisting a canoe up into one of the big trees near Eagle.  I started to get dressed, pondering exactly what I might say to a group of seniors bent on some sort of canoe-tree mischief, when a second look out the window revealed the canoe being being lowered back to the ground.   What had caused the pranksters to change course?  George was standing just inside Eagle Archway staring intently at the proceedings.  If he said anything, I did not hear it, but the boys were quickly about the business of undoing their handiwork and slinking off the bed.  When I asked George later on how he had known what was going on - had he heard noises from the Quad? - he said he was not sure; he woke up and somehow knew that going for a walk was a good idea.

A Letter

Recently, archivist Carol Ketcham sent over a copy of a letter TPR sent to Gilman Ordway '44 in December of 1945.  She was pleased to have had a letter from Ordway, then a student at Yale, and pleased to learn he was rooming with Eddie Custer '43.  TPR clearly knew the boys; she knew that Eddie had served in India during the war and that he wrote poetry, and she knew Gilman was a writer as well (he has a neat story in the '44 yearbook).
She filled Ordway in on the activities of the Army on campus, especially the improvements such as the sprinkler system and the new pool, and she went on to express her hope that Avon would one day re-open as a school.  "Your letter," she wrote, "and the letters from other Avon boys, telling me you stand ready to support the school, cheer my heart."
It comes as no surprise that alumni supported the idea of re-opening the school.  It did, after all, re-open in 1948, something that could not have happened without a great deal of suport from alumni.  Neither is it a surprise that TPR knew and took an active interest in some recent alumni.  While she was not a constant presence on campus during the Founder's Era, she was here from time to time, and every alumnus of the period I have met can recount at least one story of meeting Mrs. Riddle.  TPR was fond of the quotation "by their fruits ye shall know them," and she said more than once that the school was her life.  In that context, one can only imagine how she felt about the school's closing (too distraught to attend Commencement in '44, she sat in her car on Dio circle) and how fervently she would have looked for signs that a re-opening would "take."

Henry Coons '71

After a few technical issues, I've finally been able to review the  video of my interview with Henry Coons '71.  Henry enrolled in 1968 and has been at school for all but five of the intervening years.  A few stories from his student days: In Henry's first year, the school discovered his roommate was selling drugs.  Since the roommate was off campus at the time, they simply told him not to return.  The roommate wanted his stuff back, though, so Henry agreed to drop it off in Greenwich on his next trip to New York.  When he got on a train with the roommate's duffel bag, Henry realized it was an express train not scheduled to stop in Greenwich.  Uncertain about what to do, Henry tossed the bag out the window as they rolled through Greenwich station and then left a message for his former roommate.  He had no way of knowing whether it had worked until on a subsequent trip to New York he saw a homeless man wandering the tracks outside Greenwich wearing some of the roommate's distinctive clothing!
At the start of his second year, Henry's view from his room in Diogenes afforded him a good view of registration and new headmaster George Trautman enforcing the haircut policy by sending students to the barber before they could move in.   He also remembered doing science labs that involved live rats.  In one lab, Henry's lab partner was the anesthesiologist, while Henry was the perform some sort of rat surgery.  Unfortunately, his lab partner feinted, the rat's ether wore off, and the rat ran off before Henry could finish.  Henry now works in the old science building; no word on whether he has encountered an aged, deformed rat in the hallways.