Celebrating Initiative Threefold at 90

By Bill Day

The year 2016 brings the ninetieth anniversary of the purchase of Threefold Farm in Spring Valley, NY, by Ralph Courtney, Charlotte Parker, and other members of New York City’s Threefold Group. As we started contemplating celebrations and observances, we quickly realized that a host of landmark events at Threefold took place in years that end with the number 6: the founding of Threefold Farm (1926), the opening of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer’s Biochemical Research Laboratory (1946), the opening of Green Meadow Waldorf School’s first building (1956), the founding of the Fellowship Community and the Camphill Foundation (both 1966), Green Meadow’s first twelfth grade graduation (1976), the Waldorf Institute’s relocation to Threefold as Sunbridge College, and the founding of the Eurythmy Spring Valley Performing Group (both 1986), and the founding of the Pfeiffer Center and the Fiber Craft Studio (both 1996).

All those anniversaries cried out for a party, so on Saturday, May 21, a couple hundred of our closest friends gathered on the Main House lawn for games, speeches, a delicious buffet dinner (featuring updated menu items from Threefold Restaurant menus of the 1920s), cupcakes, skits, and sparklers. The New York Branch sent flowers and a note wishing us “another century of work—together!” and Dorothea Mier offered the hope that “such an event can truly bind us all together, more united, to go into the future having looked at the past.”

This fall, we look forward to welcoming friends from across the country for the Anthroposophical Society’s Fall Conference and AGM, “Representing Anthroposophy” from Thursday, October 6th through 9th. Come Celebrate Initiative with us!

Pictured from top

Judith Brockway Aventuro reflected on nearly 40 years in the community; Rafael Manaças, Executive Director of Threefold Educational Foundation; Jeanette Rodriguez, director of the Otto Specht School; long-time Fellowship Community resident Michael Laney; Karl Fredrickson, Ann Scharff, Lady Carter, Ann Courtney Pratt; Carol Avery, Sayre (Sally) Burns, Mariel Farlow; Dorothea Mier, Beth Dunn-Fox, Patrick Kennedy; Michael Scharff, Maiken Nielsen, Julian Liu; Skip Herman with granddaughter Serena and the festive menu; everyone enjoying after-dinner skits...