RICHARD J. CLANCY RETIRES AFTER THIRTY-ONE YEARS AT C.M.S. The closing of Cardigan's thirty-first year will bring an end to a great part of the first period of the school's history. Richard J. Clancy, chef-steward of Cardigan Mountain School since opening day, will retire in June. With Clancy's parting, the school will have lost not only the last remaining member of its original staff, but a good friend who has helped to shape the small family school founded on Canaan Street in 1945 into the Cardigan Mountain School of today. In a very real sense, Clancy's story is the history of Cardigan Mountain School itself. But Clancy's association with Canaan and the men who made Cardigan goes back even farther. Born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island in 1915, Clancy first came to the area during the 1930's to supervise the construction of government work camps. In the late 'thirties and early 'fo rties, he held a position as chef in Windsor, Ve.rmont, where he met and married Nellie Barton. It was during this period of time that he and William R. Brewster, co-founder of Cardigan School (as it was then called) met. When the war ended, Brewster contacted Clancy about coming to work at the new school, then in the planning stages. Fresh from the Army, with a wife and new-born daughter, Clancy accepted the offer. In the words of Robert C. Hopkins, author of The History of Cardigan Mountain School -1945-1960, " right from the beginning, [Clancy] has been an influence for good. Among Brewster's many contributions none has worn better than Clancy."' During his tenure at C.M.S., Clancy has always held the position of chef-steward. In the first years on the street, though, Clancy's role extended much farther than his title suggests. In addition to preparing the meals for the faculty and students, he raised and butchered his own livestock to feed the school. "On October 25, Clancy butchered a pig in preparation for the Thanksgiving dinner. The School had six pigs." Sam Adams (from The Cardigan Chronicle, Oct. 1950) Students helped with the chores, including feeding and caring for the animals and helping in the kitchen. Then, as now, kitchen jobs were in great demand by the students because of the welcome atmosphere there. One of the current seniors was asked why he liked to work in the kitchen. He replied, "It's like a family in there." One of the most often told stories at Cardigan concerns a young boy from Massachusetts who came to Cardigan very much a loner in the fall of 1945. Clancy introduced the boy to working in the kitchen, and by the end of his year at Cardigan, he was capable of running the kitchen himself (he actually did so one day when Clancy was sick). Lee Bailey found a family in the kitchen and became a part of it, thanks to Clancy's interest in him and in all the boys. Clancy was more than one of the staff; he was like a brother; "a wiser older friend, a confidant."2 The boy, now criminal lawyer F. Lee Bailey, remembers this year as one of his happiest, and he credits Clancy with getting him interested in law as the result of a trip they took to Windsor Prison.
Clancy's experience in the work camps of the Depression stood him well when it came to meeting and dealing with some of the daily problems in the old Lodge on Canaan Street. The school's first water system consisted of an artesian well which, through the years, came to supply water to some of the private homes on the street. Clancy serviced and maintained this and the subsequent pump system, used until the move up to the new campus on the hill. One summer, Clancy attacked the outside of the lodge and other buildings with detergent !O clean up the paint job, later helping to repaint the buildings himself. In the late 'forties and early 'fifties, skiing was already . a popular winter sport at Cardigan and the school had by then purchased the slopes on the Pinnacle and behind Clancy's house . Clancy was one of the people who helped to build the school's first ski-tow, using a series of pulleys attached to the rear wheel of a Model 'A' Ford, which had been built into a log frame. This system was used on the Pinnacle for years and was finally moved over to Clancy Mountain, as it became known. Although the Model 'A' is long gone, parts of the early arrangement are still to be found in the rope-tow the school uses on the intermediate slope. Clancy has been a good friend to the students, ready to give advice, help with work, tell a good story, or just be a "listener. His kitchen has been a welcome place. Clancy's beliefwas that the school's kitchen should be like the kitchen at home -the place where the boys would come if they needed any.thing from a band-aid for a cut to someone to talk to. This openness has comforted many students over the years, especially those boys who were feeling the loneliness of being a~ay from home for the first time. In the kitchen, they could set aside (Continued on next page)