Putney Post, Spring 2014 by The Putney School

Putney Post Spring 2014

Putney School Classes of

2021 ?

Happy Kids at Reunion.

Bring the Family! reunion Putney School Reunion Weekend June 13–15, 2014 “People wondering whether to go, GO! Just do it. You’ll be so glad that you did.” Reunion Feedback

Come celebrate with us!

Classes of 1944–45, 1954, 1958–60, 1964 1973–76, 1984–85, 1989–90, 2003–05 www.putneyschool.org/reunion

Contents 2 Message from the Head of School A question of balance

4 Cover Artist: Holton Rower ’80 “I don’t love interviews.”

8 News Harvest Festival, alpacas,

car charger, Hugh Montgomery, and more

14 Say Cheese A rtisan cheesemaking becomes a learning experience for many

19 Introducing Cailin Manson C arrying Putney’s music

27 Alumni News Alumni authors, events, and other news

31 Alumni Notes 63 In Memoriam

tradition forward with skilled and open hands

22 Llama Llama’s Artist Mama I nterview with children’s book author Anna Luhrmann Dewdney ’83

theputneyschool ThePutneySchoolVT

@putneyschool

theputneyschool The Putney School Network

<top> “DEER,” (DETAIL), 2013 BY SIENA ’14, ADVANCED DRAWING CLASS. ON THE COVER: <front> “NO ONE WANTS TO SELL HALF A RABBIT,” BY HOLTON ROWER ’80, 2012, PAINT ON PLYWOOD, 83

63 1/2

1 1/4 INCHES. <back> “LATEST TRYUMPH!” BY HOLTON ROWER ’80, 2011, PAINT ON PLYWOOD, 105

11 1/2 INCHES.

Touring museums and historic sites is part of any cultural immersion experience. Here is a mural seen by students on the trimester in Cuernavaca, Mexico trip last winter.

A Message from the Head of School Dear Putney alumni, parents, and friends, Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another. â&#x20AC;&#x201C;William James

Emily Jones Head of School

Since its birth Putney has prided itself on being different. Sometimes we swam intentionally against the cultural tide, sometimes seemed unaware of it. Perhaps at times we were more clear about what we were not than what we were. Although Putney is by its very nature an unusual place, offering a kind of life teenagers would be hard pressed to find elsewhere, I observe that most of the decisions we face are not about difference, but about balance. An example much on my mind now is that of finding the right balance between sending our students out to experience a wider world, and having them learn the lessons to be had by living in a small community for an extended time. The global education piece is much in vogue, and makes us more like other schools; living in a small

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community is a way in which Putney is substantively differentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but it is the balance that is important to get right. We have created opportunities for students to spend terms in Mexico, China, and France, and are working towards a graduation requirement that each student live for a time in a culture much different from their own, whether in the U.S. or abroad. We know that Americans increasingly live in communities of people they already agree with, and that disruption of preconceptions is most effectively accomplished by leaving home. Cultural fluency, defined as the ability to move between cultures with ease and grace, is a core goal of the school. But we also know that Americans are often rootless, and that many have never lived anywhere long enough to learn how to make a community out of their neighbors, rather than simply choose their friends. Life in a small town, which in many ways a boarding school resembles, requires us to live with the consequences of our mistakes, to accept those of others, and to compromise. Four years is long enough, as many

of you know, to learn to love of a piece of land—for many Putney students over the years this hill has been the first piece of land they rooted in. The small scale of this place allows students to make a difference here, and to realize that they must not be mere observers in their communities. If we find the right balance in our program between time committed to this small community, and the leavening impact of time in unfamiliar places, we will be able to help students become adults who can put their shoulders to the wheel in whatever place they find themselves later in life. I would be delighted to hear from any of you who would like to weigh in on this particular question of balance—or another. All the best to all of you, Emily

Putney Post The Putney School Elm Lea Farm 418 Houghton Brook Road Putney, VT 05346 802-387-5566 www.putneyschool.org Emily H. Jones, Head of School

2013–2014 Trustees Tonia Wheeler P’99, Chair Ira T. Wender P’77, ’89, Vice Chair Randall Smith, Treasurer Katharina Wolfe, Clerk Bela ’15, Student Trustee Danny ’14, Student Trustee Mike Keim, Faculty Trustee Lies Pasterkamp P’15, Faculty Trustee Lakshman Achuthan ’84 Wilfredo Benitez ’81 Lee Combrinck-Graham ’59 Tim Daly ’74, P’07 Freddy Friedman P’12 Joshua Rabb Goldberg ’75 Stephen Heyneman ’61 Dana Hokin ’84 Emily H. Jones Bill Kellett G’02, ’15 Joshua Laughlin ’82 Christopher Lehmann-Haupt ’52 William New, Jr. Franz Paasche ’79 Peter Pereira ’52 Robert G. Raynolds ’69 Marni Rosner ’69, P’04, ’07 Anne Stephens S’54 James Thompson ’74 Iris Wang P’16

Isabel ’16, Frankie ’15, Nina ’15, Celia ’15, Rose ’15, Sylvie ’14, and Jocelyn ’14 spent the winter trimester studying abroad in Cuernavaca Mexico at Universidad Internacional with Putney School Spanish Teacher Abelardo

Trustees Emeriti

Almazan-Vazquez. Next year we will

Barbara Barnes ’41 Kate Ganz Belin ’62 Joan Williams Farr ’49 Sarah Gray Gund ’60 Kendall Landis ’42, P’73, ’79 Bici Binger Pettit-Barron ’48, P’77, ’79, G’07

offer trimesters in China and France in addition to this recently completed pilot program in Mexico.

“All of us to a greater or less degree build castles in the air.” —Carmelita Hinton, First line of 1934 handwritten prospectus for The Putney School.

founder: carmelita hinton

The Putney Post is published twice yearly for the alumni, parents, and friends of The Putney School. We welcome your comments and ideas. Please direct your correspondence to: The Editor, Putney Post, Elm Lea Farm, 418 Houghton Brook Road, Putney, VT 05346; 802-387-6238; email: putneypost@putneyschool.org

Editorial Board: John Barrengos, Don Cuerdon, Alison Frye, Emily Jones, Hugh Montgomery Publisher: Don Cuerdon Director of Communications Editor: Alison Frye Alumni Relations Manager Alumni Relations Manager: Alison Frye Photographs: Justin Altman, Prudence Baird, Don Cuerdon, Mark Green, The Putney School archives

New Ground Creative Please send address corrections and new phone numbers to: Alumni Office, The Putney School, Elm Lea Farm, 418 Houghton Brook Road, Putney, VT 05346; phone: 802-387-6213; fax: 802-387-5931; email: cfogg@putneyschool.org

Holton Rower ’80 Cover Artist

Holton Rower is an artist who does not love interviews. He did not let us interview him for this issue of the Putney Post. In response to our initial inquiry, he wrote, “Instead of an artist’s interview perhaps just that I attended Putney four years and love the school dearly.” Wandering the Internet in search of Holton Rower interviews, we took heart that his reticence wasn’t about us. There are no interviews of Holton Rower anywhere. There are stories about his work written by people who seem to know what they are talking about, but the stories are based on what the authors have observed about Holton’s work—not on conversations with Holton about his work. There are also some videos. Most show Holton creating one of his poured paint pieces such as those gracing the front and back covers of this issue. One shows him talking about how he typically uses 50 gallons of paint per poured piece. We’ve captured part of one of the poured painting videos by cinematographer Dave Kaufman for you in this issue.

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By Don Cuerdon Anything else we could tell you is conjecture or based on our own experience of viewing Holton’s work. It is rare to find an artist who simply refuses to talk about his art. Dull as that may seem, it does feel refreshing. Nobody paints or sculpts about writing. Why the double standard? Isn’t visual art a form of communication in itself? But that’s all conjecture. We don’t know why Holton doesn’t give interviews. Maybe it’s because he wants you to have your own opinion of his work. Do we crave the validation of discovering the intent of the artist and having our interpretation match his? Or do we crave discovering the intent of why Holton doesn’t give interviews? Instead of all this wondering, let’s enjoy these photos of Holton’s sculptures. They are whatever you perceive them to be—which is perhaps why he hasn’t named them. But that’s also just conjecture.

<above> On the back cover, “Latest Tryumph!” By Holton Rower, 2011, paint on plywood, 105 x 98 x 11 1/2 inches. <opposite page> On the front cover, “No One Wants to Sell Half a Rabbit,” by Holton Rower, 2012, paint on plywood, 83 x 63 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches.

To see this video, search “Holton Rower” on YouTube.

<clockwise from upper left> all titled “Untitled”

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News Lydia Davis ’65 Wins the Man Booker International Prize Lydia Davis ’65 is a professor of creative writing at the State University of New York at Albany. She is best known for two contrasting accomplishments: translating from the French Marcel Proust’s complex Du Côté de Chez Swann (Swann’s Way) and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary—to great acclaim—and writing short stories, a number of which are among the shortest stories ever written. Much of her fiction may be seen under the aspect of philosophy or poetry or short story, and even the longer creations may be as succinct as two or three pages. Lydia won the prestigious Man Booker International Prize late last May, but we learned the news too late to include it in the fall issue of the Putney Post. The Man Booker website (www. manbookerprize.com) had the following to say about Lydia’s achievement:

“I was recently denied a writing prize because they said I was lazy,” runs one of Lydia Davis’s two-sentence short stories. Well not any more. Davis has just been awarded the fifth Man Booker International Prize at an award ceremony at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Her inventive, carefully-crafted and hard to categorize works saw off the challenge from nine other contenders from around the world. The judges—Professor Sir Christopher Ricks, Elif Batuman, Aminatta Forna, Yiyun Li and Tim Parks—recognized that crafting spare, philosophical and original works, however short, is not for the lazy at all but takes time, skill, and effort. The Prize, worth £60,000, is awarded for an achievement in fiction on the world stage and Davis’s achievements are writ large despite often using startlingly few words. Her work has the brevity and precision of poetry. Sir 1 Christopher Ricks, chairman of the judges, said her “writings fling their lithe arms wide to embrace many a kind.” Just how to categorize them? They have been called stories but could equally be miniatures, anecdotes, essays, jokes, parables, fables, texts, aphorisms or even apophthegms, prayers or simply observations.” Davis then is not like any other writer and she follows, and contrasts with, the previous winners of the prize: Ismail Kadaré, Chinua Achebe, Alice Munro, and Philip Roth.

Alpacas Arrive on Campus With the arrival of the summer students and the many construction projects underway on campus, there are a lot of new faces at Putney this summer. Some of the more unusual ones include the alpacas, who now live in the solar field. Domesticated by the Incas in Peru and prized for their luxurious fiber, alpacas are a smaller species of the camelid family. There are five females on campus; their names are Flashdance (brown), Abbey Road (medium fawn), Daisy (light fawn), Sonata (white), and Indu (white). The alpacas are sheared once a year in May. Students will be using the fleece from this year to blend with our sheep’s wool for blanket weaving projects in the fall and some of the finer alpaca fleece will be held aside for hand spinning.

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Hugh Montgomery is Back as Director of Development Hugh Montgomery is no stranger to The Putney School. His first tour of duty in the development office started on Halloween in 1987 and lasted until the spring of 1988. During what Hugh refers to as “my 15-year sabbatical,” he served as the director of gift planning at the Student Conservation Association, picked up a graduate degree from Antioch New England, built a house, and put two daughters—Katie ’04 and Sally ’05—through The Putney School.

After attending his first board meeting since his return, Hugh wrote in a note to Board Chair Tonia Wheeler, “While I hope Putney will always remain true to its simple traditions, our students and teachers—not to mention the physical resources of Elm Lea Farm—deserve and demand constant renewal. We should strive to be even better stewards of the ideas, values, people, places, and things that together constitute a most unusual experience. Tuition revenue cannot sustain these key components. “In my second stint on West Hill I hope to normalize philanthropy as a primary engine of improvement. We must together encourage stakeholders to seize the opportunity to take Putney to a stronger position and, in so doing, increase the school’s impact on its people and our society.” Welcome back, Hugh.

Greenpeace Captain, Peter Willcox ’72, to Speak at Graduation As you probably know by now, Peter Willcox ’72, captain of the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, spent several months in Russian prisons in Murmansk and St. Petersburg with his crew and two journalists when the ship was boarded by Russian commandos last September 19. They were subsequently released and Peter was home sporting a Putney School hat not long after. From the reincarnated Rainbow Warrior (the original was sunk by the French intelligence service, DGSE, in 1985), en route from Mexico to Amsterdam last March, Peter wrote to us, “Prison was not a lot of fun. I am not planning to do that again, at least any time soon.” We’re glad for all of that, but extra glad that Peter accepted our invitation to speak at graduation on June 8 this year. We look forward to hearing about his experiences of living Carmelita Hinton’s admonition, “To wish to live adventurously though not recklessly, willing to take risks, if need be, for moral growth, so that one definitely progresses along the long slow road toward achieving a civilization worthy of the name.”

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The

PhotoBooth Project

Christopher Irion, an advertising photographer based in Putney and San Francisco, came to campus for four days last winter to capture black and white portrait images of students, faculty, trustees, and others in our school community “including dogs, cats, sheep, alpacas, and cows,” says Christopher. As part of his series, The PhotoBooth project, he uses a photo booth to frame the photo. It’s essentially a white box you enter and, just as you sit, Christopher fires off an image. The results are wonderfully candid and rich with spontaneity. The experience was unique to us, but not Christopher. “Although for a number of years I shot a lot of people/lifestyle work, I have refined my interest in the human face to where I’ve removed as much non-essential information as possible,” says Christopher. “Working against a solid background, I look for only what a person can bring with them on their person. I then look for a gesture, a body movement, or an unguarded expression that allows me to make photographs/portraits that reveal character, depth, and if I am lucky, a soul. “In addition to commercial work, my personal work for the last ten years has involved traveling around the country photographing various communities and events with The PhotoBooth Project. I make a series of several hundred portraits and then create a public installation of the work as a way of showing that community back to itself. This work has been shown in towns, schools, colleges, and museums across the country.” By the time you read this, the installation in the Michael S. Currier Center gallery will have come and gone, but you can learn more about Christopher, The PhotoBooth Project and, quite likely, be able to view the installation on his website at www.irionphotography.com.

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New EV Charging Station Installed Being prudent with resources has been a tenet of life on this New England farm campus long before the word “sustainability” had any buzz. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without,” is one way Vermonters have expressed this idea over generations. This notion of not wasting anything is the basis of what inspired us to build the Field House—the first-ever net-zero, LEED Platinum, secondary school building in the nation. It’s why our Master Plan provides guidance on how to upgrade our entire campus to net-zero status whenever one of our buildings needs maintenance or repair. So it’s no surprise that we’ve made it possible, thanks to the donation of a state-of-the-art General Electric

DuraStation charger, for people driving electric vehicles to recharge in our driveway. Maria is a nurse in the health center and past parent (Zizi ’07 and Meg ’09) who has committed to driving a car that, through the use of a powerful electric motor, uses less gasoline. Ford’s website says, “The C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid model has the best combined MPGe in its class, with an EPA-estimated 108 city/92 hwy/100 combined MPGe. MPGe is the EPA equivalent measure of gasoline fuel efficiency for electric mode operation.” Maria topped off the partially-discharged lithium ion battery (that also charges whenever the car’s brakes are applied) this morning in 58 minutes, which used about 2.8KWh of electricity, which cost roughly 12 cents per KWh. A fully-discharged battery takes about four hours to recharge. So drive your electric car here! You can now make the round-trip.

Playing Fields Upgraded Our soccer/lacrosse fields, which haven’t had much more than lines chalked on them since the school started in 1935, were completely refurbished last fall. Those fields worked fine for many, many years, but they eventually became so uneven from use as to be dangerous to the players. Thanks to funds raised by current parents and money earmarked for the project as part of the Field House construction, we were able to make them better than ever. The topsoil was removed and stored so work could occur beneath, including improvement to drainage and leveling the playing surfaces. Although the work was completed in September, fall soccer games had to be played away as the grass seed took hold. Spring lacrosse games are also being played elsewhere, thanks to a particularly hard winter this year, but we should be playing on them in time for Summer Programs, which start at the end of June. Putney post

Harvest Festival Ongoing since our founding in 1935, the 78th annual Harvest Festival at The Putney School was a warm, sunny, autumn day filled with fun, food, friends, farm animals, and so many caramel apples that youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d think they grew on trees like that. Here are some moments from the day:

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Student Art and Writing Awards Art American Visions Award/ Gold Key Award Nora, Grade 9, Photography Gold Key Awards Phebe, Grade 11, Printmaking Madeline, Grade 12, Ceramics & Glass Erin, Grade 11, Photography Silver Key Awards Bangwei, Grade 11, Drawing Dong, Grade 10, Ceramics & Glass Jeffrey, Grade 10, Photography Aidan, Grade 12, Sculpture Madeline, Grade 12, Ceramics & Glass American Voices Award winner Siena ’14 (bottom row, left), Gold Key Award winners Phebe ’15 (top row, center), and Maddy ’12 (bottom row, right) at the award ceremony on March 8.

The 2014 Vermont region Scholastic Art & Writing Awards ceremony was held at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center on Saturday, March 8, 2014. Unfortunately, The Putney School was on March Break, so only a handful of our many award winners were able to attend. The awards are made to Vermont high school students who enter their work for consideration. Winning works move on to national-level judging, more awards, and possible college scholarship funding.

Silver Key Awards, three of five Gold Key Awards, and one of five American Visions Awards in the art category. Gold and Silver Key Award winners qualify for national-level judging and the possibility of winning Gold or Silver Medal Awards. The American Visions Awards go to the “best in show” of the Gold Key Award winners and move on to national-level judging in that elite category as well. A Putney student also won a Gold Key Award in writing, and was chosen as one of three American Voices Award winners, the writing equivalent of the American Visions Award.

Starry Mountain Singers

Competitive art is a bit of a crazy concept, as evidenced in much of the apologetic rhetoric of the award ceremony’s speakers, including former Putney art teacher, Eric Aho. But it’s difficult to celebrate outstanding art any other way. So our students humbly accepted nine of 34 Honorable Mention Awards, eight of 17

Congratulations to all of the student winners and their teachers who guided them to this level of achievement. Here is the full list of The Putney School’s 2014 Vermont region Scholastic Art & Writing Award Winners:

Tristan, Grade 9, Sculpture Olaf, Grade 9, Photography (3) Supawat, Grade 10, Drawing (5: series Honorable Mention Awards Bangwei, Grade 11, Architecture, Drawing Maude, Grade 12, Photography Dong, Grade 10, Ceramics & Glass (2) Phebe, Grade 11, Printmaking Madeline, Grade 12, Ceramics & Glass (2) Siena, Grade 12, Printmaking Maximilian, Grade 11, Photography Olaf, Grade 9, Photography Supawat, Grade 10, Drawing

Writing American Voices Award/ Gold Key Award Siena, Grade 12, Personal Essay/Memoir

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Say Cheese A Renowned Cheesemaking Alumnus and His Partner Provide Educational and Responsible Business Opportunities for The Putney School

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This story is a perfect storm of education, mission, sustainability, community, and localvore collaboration between The Putney School and Parish Hill Creamery. The short story is that all of Elm Lea Farm’s milk gathered in fair weather, while the herd is able to graze in our pastures, is now sold straight to Parish Hill to become artisan cheese made by Pete Dixon ’75 and his partner, Rachel Fritz Schaal, in nearby Westminster West. In the bargain, Putney students are finding opportunities for independent study. Bea ’14 took advantage of that educational opportunity in the form of a senior tutorial last fall in which she learned a lot about cheesemaking and wrote an essay about it for you, below, plus an interview with Pete Dixon about the specifics of the craft. How I Came to be a Student of Cheesemaking By Bea ’14 I came into lunch one day and sat down next to Pete Stickney (Putney’s farm manager). He happened to be eating some delicious-looking cheese and I asked him where he got it. He said Pete Dixon, a local man who had gone to Putney himself —class of ’75—made it. Pete continued to tell me that Pete Dixon would be buying all of Putney’s milk and making cheese with it starting the following summer for his new company, Parish

Hill Creamery. Pete didn’t have to tell me that Pete Dixon was a famous cheesemaker—I could tell by the small slice of cheese that he had given me to eat. I didn’t know much back then about where our milk goes when it leaves here, although I knew that we had the privilege of drinking it and it had been used by the Cabot and Grafton cheese companies. Once I found out that our milk would be going from fairly local to a couple of minutes away, I realized that this was an opportunity to make a hands-on science class a reality. After playing phone tag with Pete, his wife Rachel Schaal called me back. She agreed to let me work with them, expressing that they would be as flexible as I needed and that I could meet with them as often as my schedule allowed. I worked on The Putney School’s farm as a milker last fall to truly get to know the cows that I would indirectly be working with for the next couple of months. Putting our cows out to pasture takes a lot time and effort, but when done correctly (we systematically rotate pastures) it positively enhances the state of the cows and the environment in which we are living. I learned that Pete and Rachel are only working with Putney’s milk when the cows have been on pasture (from May to November) because of the effect that it has on the flavor of the cheese. Having milked the cows, worked with the milk to make cheese, and then having eaten the cheese myself, I can proudly tell people exactly where the cheese came from.

Of her academic tutorial in cheesemaking, Bea says, “Every day I did something different— working with different types of cheese, working in the cheese cave, scrubbing mold off of cheese, or doing research in their LIBRARY.”

When I finally got the chance to meet Pete and Rachel, we got right to work. Pete, who is a very humble and incredibly knowledgeable guy, could answer any cheese question I had, and it almost always involved a story about his life with cheese. They kindly explained the cheesemaking process to me and had me jump right in. Whether it was hooking up the hose from the milk truck to the milk vat or slicing the newly formed curd, they made me a part of the process. Every day I did something different—working with different types of cheese, working in the cheese cave, scrubbing mold off of cheese, or doing research in their library. But no matter what I was doing, I was always learning about cheese.

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The story of how the Farm Page grew to be a feature story for this issue starts with a cryptic email from Pete Stickney, Putney’s farm manager and history department faculty member, in which he interviews himself. Dude, why is this cheese story more than just a Farm Page update? Pete: This is an exciting arrangement on a lot of levels. For starters, Pete [Dixon] is an alumnus, and he and Rachel are great teachers. Bea is just the first of many students whom I foresee benefiting from their tutelage. Furthermore, it is very rewarding to see our milk turned into great cheeses by masters of the craft. Once every two weeks, [Farm Assistant] Katie [Ross, whom you met last issue] and I process milk for serving in the KDU. It is always fun to tell the barn crew, on that day, that their efforts will be enjoyed by the entire community for the next two weeks. Otherwise, our milk is blended with the milk from dozens of other farms and used in numerous places. We take pride in producing quality milk and have received numerous awards recognizing our efforts, but we can never really know if a package of Grafton Clothbound or Cabot Cheddar really does contain any of our milk. Seeing a cave full of beautiful cheeses comprised entirely of our milk is very exciting. And, of course, underlying all of this is the fact that I love cheese!

Bea says, “This particular cheese becomes a harder cheese than most because, as it hangs, moisture is released from it.”

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I really did not know much about cheese before doing this project but I learned so much from working with Pete and Rachel. One cheese that specifically intrigued me is their caciocavallo, which they call Suffolk Punch. One day I showed up to the cheese room and they were molding the cheese curds in their hands to create a cheese that could be hung. This is definitely a process that takes time to master. Making sure not to rip the curd, I would dip mine into hot water and mold the cheese with the palms of my hands. This particular cheese becomes a harder cheese than most because, as it hangs, moisture is released from it.

things at Putney that could be done halfway, but as a community we have genuine understanding of what it means to do the job well and to take pride in how you do it. I thank Putney for believing in progressive education because, without Putney, this experience might not have been possible for me.

Making cheese with Pete and Rachel has been an educational experience like no other. I love that at Putney, people are excited about things like having fresh milk in their hot chocolate after a cold morning of doing barn. I have such an appreciation for being in a place where something that seems so simple, such as having fresh cream, is so precious and not taken for granted. There are so many

As part of her tutorial last fall, Bea ’14 sat down with Pete Dixon for a Q and A about the fine art—and business—of making artisan cheese. Here’s what she learned.

An Interview with Parish Hill Creamery’s Co-Owner and Master Cheesemaker, Peter Dixon ’75

Bea: What is the process for deciding what kind of cheese you are going to make?

Pete: First I look at the market and try to figure out what types of cheese have less competition. Then I think about the kind of milk I will be using and try to match the cheeses with this milk in the best possible way—taking into consideration seasonality’s effect on milk composition. For example, I may choose to make more blue when the milk fat content is higher. Aging period is another consideration. I try to match the production of the cheese with the best times to sell it given how long it typically ages. Also, I will make more one-year aged cheese in the summer to match the sales at farmers markets and start making more five-month aged cheese in the early summer to meet the holiday demand.

Bea: Is their any pressure to just stay with the “Vermont Cheddar”?

Pete: We don’t feel any pressure to make cheddar. There is already a whole lot of great cheddar in Vermont. Instead we are making Italian-style cheeses at Parish Hill Creamery. Bea: With the focus on health and weight these days, is there any difficulty around selling a high-fat product like cheese?

Pete: As part of a balanced diet, cheese provides excellent nutrition, and people are particularly interested in buying cheese that is produced in their community using traditional methods. I think that people purchase higher-fat artisan cheeses with the intent of eating smaller amounts. They buy these cheeses for the unique flavors and textures. These cheeses are more of a specialty rather than a staple.

Bea: Like high-quality chocolate, are you trying to produce a cheese that people will savor?

Pete: This answer builds on the answer to the previous question. We are definitely trying to produce this kind of product. That is why we have chosen our ingredients carefully: raw milk that is produced from May to Thanksgiving by a small herd of cows that graze on pastures, eat dry hay, and live outside; Swiss rennet; creamery-propagated cultures; and Maine sea salt. Our goal is to work with a local dairy farm and a salt works in Maine, to allow native microbes to ferment the milk and establish the cheese rinds, and develop unique

textures and flavors in the cheeses. I believe that starting with the best raw materials, working carefully, and paying close attention to the fermentation processes is the path to producing the highest-quality cheeses with unique and unparalleled texture and flavor.

Bea: Do you prefer to make cheese with unpasteurized milk and how do you feel about pasteurization laws? Pete: We make cheese from raw, unpasteurized milk. I believe that milk produced to the highest standards provides the best raw material for great cheese. Pasteurization destroys many bacteria beneficial to the cheesemaking and aging processes. Some of these are replaced when cheesemakers add starter cultures, but the overall balance of microflora is dramatically altered. Based on the evidence that I have compiled studying cheeses throughout the world, raw milk is essential. If this were not so, then some of the famous cheeses of the world—Comte (Gruyere), L’Etivaz (Gruyere), Montgomery Cheddar, and Parmigiano-Reggiano, to name only a few—would not have strict requirements for using only raw milk in their manufacture. Using raw milk lends complexity and depth of flavor that pasteurized milk cheeses do not have. Cheesemakers oversee the transformation of milk into cheese, directing the processes of making and aging cheese by harnessing the energy of the microbes and enzymes. The better the raw materials and the more careful the process, the more successful the outcome—delightful cheese on the table or prepared in a delicious dish. The dairy industry regulations are promulgated under the premise that raw milk is harmful to human health. While milk can certainly contain pathogenic bacteria, it does not always. Proper, hygienically-produced milk can be, and is, safely made into cheese, and has been for thousands of years. However, because of the potential risk, the federal government imposed a rule in the 1950s charging cheesemakers who use raw milk to age the cheese for at least 60 days at a temperature of 35F or higher.

“Having milked the cows, worked with the milk to make cheese, and then having eaten the cheese myself I can proudly tell people exactly where the cheese came from,” says Bea. “There are so many things at Putney that could be done halfway, but as a community we have genuine understanding of what it means to do the job well and to take pride in how you do it.”

This aging process creates enough competition between beneficial and pathogenic bacteria that the disease-causing organisms don’t survive. Putney post

This is supposed to be equivalent to pasteurization. Because of the 60-day aging rule, many cheeses cannot be made from raw milk. The FDA, which regulates dairy products, is conducting investigations into cheeses that pose a higher risk for supporting pathogen growth (especially softripened cheeses such as Brie and Camembert). Therefore, the 60-day rule may change to prohibit making such cheeses from raw milk. Pasteurization is necessary in large-scale dairy production, including cheese, because of the way that milk is collected and stored. Milk for large-scale processing is picked up from dairy farms in tanker trucks, and it often takes a few pickups to fill the truck. The pump and hose that move the milk from the bulk tanks to the truck are rinsed at each farm but not put through a complete wash cycle. This creates an environment that induces bacterial growth without the fermentation that would control it. I have tried in the past to make a raw milk cheese from blended tanker loads, without success. In fact, the cheeses developed quality problems and none were saleable.

<top> Pete Dixon ’75 and Rachel Fritz Schaal with a variety of Parish Hill Creamery offerings. <above> Pete makes sure the curds, whey, and whiskers are all where they’re supposed to be.

Farmstead cheesemakers and those who use the milk from just one farm are using unblended milk and milk that is either transported a short distance or not at all. This provides a much better situation for making raw milk cheese. I actually believe that there should be two sets of regulations rather than a one-size-fits-all policy. One set would be the current regulations as they stand, for those who blend milk, and the second would govern farmstead producers of cheese. The farmstead regulations would allow farmstead cheesemakers to make any cheese from raw milk, as long as they were sold directly to customers within their own state. These regulations would also govern cheesemakers who purchase milk from one farm within a 35-mile radius and sell in the same manner.

Bea: Is it difficult to sell your cheese in today’s cheese market?

Pete: The market is different than when I started 30 years ago. CSAs, farmers markets, co-ops, and chefs sourcing local foods have changed the way cheesemakers market. I have also learned how to choose the right products to make, to whom to sell them, how much to sell them for, and how best to promote them. And of course I have also made great contacts over the years! It has been really

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great to see how interested Putney School folks are in what we are doing. We were able to tell our story and give samples of our cheeses to the trustees at a meeting last fall.

Bea: What has been your specific goal throughout your business of making cheese?

Pete: I have been honing my skills in the craft of cheesemaking. I reckon that if I can make great cheese consistently and people want to buy it, then the benefits of what I do will move out to everyone involved. The cheesemaking and aging processes must be controlled, everything from the production of the milk to the sale of the cheese must be in sync. I rely on the people we work with to do the best work possible, and I know that if Parish Hill Creamery is successful, then we will all benefit.

Bea: Where do you source your milk and why do you continue to use that source? Pete: We get our milk from Elm Lea Farm at The Putney School! Excellent cheese starts with excellent milk. Elm Lea Farm produces the right amount of high quality milk, and we have a great deal of respect for Pete [Stickney] and his crew. The herd of 35 milking Holsteins and Jerseys produces enough milk to make around 32,000 pounds of cheese in our season and we think this will allow us to earn a comfortable living. Parish Hill Creamery produces cheeses that can only be made with milk from cows on pasture and dry hay. In Vermont, that means producing seasonally. We are lucky that Pete Stickney understands this and has been able to work it out so that Agri-Mark, a dairy farmer cooperative, buys the milk from Thanksgiving until May. Pete has a capable staff that includes veteran dairy farmers. They do a great job running the dairy farm and working with the students. The quality of the milk is very high, bacteria and somatic cell counts are low, and the cheese yield is fine. Pete and his staff are excited that their milk is being made into cheese just five miles from the farm and they’re eating cheese that comes directly from their efforts of managing the herd and making high-quality milk. So I am happy with the whole situation. Learn more at parishhillcreamery.com.

Introducing Cailin Manson

Carrying Putneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Music Tradition Forward with Skilled and Open Hands By Brian D. Cohen Cailin Manson knew he had big shoes to fill. He was acutely aware of the rich tradition of music making when he accepted the position as music director, and discovered how each successive music director shaped the program to his or her own image. During the interview process, Cailin was prepped to gird himself to enter the shadow of the storied Norwood Hinkle. Putney post

In his rollout to alumni at reunion last June, Cailin led the 100-some assembled Putney grads in Sing. “We just dug right into the music—I ran it like a rehearsal.” This is the heart of Cailin’s musical leadership—trust in the ability of an ensemble to make serious music and to meet the high standards he sets.

Central to Cailin’s credo as a musical educator is that ensemble playing is absolutely necessary for artistic growth; musicianship is not developed in isolation.

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Cailin grew up in Philadelphia in a deeply intellectual family of doctors, lawyers, and ministers, and yet even with these precedents it was clear early on that music would be central to his life. Gifted with an analytical ear, he was able at age three to hear a TV commercial jingle, walk over to the piano, and play it note-for-note. Cailin’s first and enduring love has been voice but he also picked up the trombone, double bass, and piano, as well as composition and conducting—as a teenager he conducted district and region festival choruses. Cailin’s understanding of how music is put together —his formal insight—has always been augmented by his curiosity about the background, character, and culture from which the music emerges. Cailin was a vocal performance major in music conservatory with an extremely wide taste for new music and vocal range. During his time in the conservatory, however, the standard operatic and oratorio repertoire wasn’t wholly satisfying and, despite many early successes, the fast-track career of a vocal soloist lost its appeal. He sought out rare and little-performed work on top of operatic engagements, defying strict classification and professional expectations. But he missed conducting and headed to the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, for intensive training in both operatic performance and orchestral conducting. Cailin became known and admired for his ability to comprehend and impart both the progression and pacing of the music, its “horizontal” form, as well as how all the parts simultaneously fit together, its “vertical” structure. Mastering the AustroGermanic canon in its place of origin, he again felt limited by repertoire and sought out pieces that strayed from the beaten track. He returned to Philadelphia, where he founded the Germantown Concert Chorus and its supporting organization, the Germantown Institute for the Vocal Arts.

Here he grouped together talented avocational and professional musicians, teaching vocal techniques and ensemble performance as well as practical aspects of the art that schools rarely train for— stage bearing, time management, and familiarity with a broad repertoire. One signal achievement was leading a choir in Handel’s Messiah for the bicentennial of one of Philadelphia’s oldest and most venerated Anglican churches, conducting members of over 40 churches and organizations and a professional orchestra. During this period, Cailin also continued his career as a vocal soloist while advising a music and drama program in an underserved area of northeastern Pennsylvania. The ensembles Cailin has chosen to work with have tended to be a mix of ages and experience levels. With the more experienced, he works at peeling away bad habits, with the young, developing good habits. He presents serious and challenging repertoire, expecting nothing less of his musicians than full concentration, commitment, and dedication to the highest standards of music making. Cailin sees untapped possibilities in the music program at Putney. He admires the value the school places on the arts within a demanding and broad overall program, and is intent on building upon a core of both student performers from diverse educational, geographic, and cultural backgrounds and adults in the surrounding community. Central to Cailin’s credo as a musical educator is that ensemble playing is absolutely necessary for artistic growth; musicianship is not developed in isolation. Cailin has begun to see that the principal challenge of developing performing ensembles within Putney’s broad program is time, rather than performers’ musical ability or training. Regular rehearsals create inevitable time conflicts for students whose academic, athletic, and work responsibilities don’t always predictably yield to the demands of choir or orchestra. But Cailin’s attitude is straightforward: set the bar above the highest level of any one individual and everyone will work hard to get there.

The Conductor: What’s He Doing, Exactly? by Cailin Manson The conductor is doing numerous things simultaneously, but the degree of each depends on the ensemble and the abilities of its personnel. Simply, the conductor shapes the sound of the ensemble as well as guides the interpretation of the score’s notation—this is done with many technical considerations. The conductor must, most obviously, indicate the tempo and meter and any shifts thereof, show the general dynamic of the larger music structure, and indicate entrances/cues as well as cut-offs, holds, and any other variants. Less obviously, the conductor intimates the quality of sound desired and the mood and energy of the music while balancing the sound of the ensemble, so that all parts are audible, but in proportion; the musical intent of both the creator (composer) and the interpreter (conductor) must be intelligible to the audience. Because most music in the European lexicon is not static, all of these functions are executed momentby-moment, with the added twist that a conductor must communicate these directives non-verbally through gestures, body language, eye contact—any number of visual cues. The players’ interpretation of the conductor’s gestures is layered on top of the interpretation the conductor seeks to render of the score. Therefore, the conductor is both active (initiating the music, etc.) and reactive (responding to what the ensemble gives me and making instant decisions on shaping the sound). When working with an orchestra of top-notch musicians, one can be less technical and much more interpretative; there is no need to remind the players how the piece is played or where to come in. The orchestra will keep itself together by listening and trusting one another. The conductor suggests the manner in which the orchestra executes each moment, and responds in kind to what the orchestra produces. Most conductors now insist on precision with the fall of the beat and synchronicity with the conductor’s gestures. I was trained this way, and fully believe in it. When dealing with an ensemble of mixed ability, a conductor must be much more didactic in his gesture by showing the technical construct of the music. As a teaching conductor, I aim to give an equal amount of both qualities in my gestures, so that players learn not to rely on me heavily for technical help but receive the clarity they require, as well as discern definite ideas about my interpretation of the sound and the score.

Leading Putney’s all-school Sing leaves Cailin undaunted. He’s used to mustering large forces, and sees Sing as an opportunity to do big things in 35 minutes once a week. He has arranged several of the great choruses for Putney’s singers, as did Norwood Hinkle, whose own editions are still in use throughout the country. Cailin now has the whole school working every Thursday on the first chorus from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.

Editor’s Note: Cailin recently received the National Association of Negro Musicians’ 2014 Black History Legacy Award, recognizing him as “A current trailblazer and game-changer in our field; a musician that is ‘making Black History today.’” The award was presented at the Black History Month Tribute Concert at Camphor Memorial United Methodist Church in Philadelphia, on Sunday, February 23, 2014.

He trusts this community to make serious music. Putney post

Llama Llama’s Artist Mama by Prudence Baird P’11 A fierce gargoyle crouches on a snowy hillock, studying the curving dirt road that leads from a covered bridge to the vintage Vermont farmhouse where children’s author and book illustrator Anna Dewdney ’83 lives with her menagerie of real and imagined creatures.

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Anna’s read-aloud, rhyming books for young children have sold more than five million copies worldwide in dozens of languages including Chinese, Korean, and Polish. Best known for her perennial bestseller and first book, Llama Llama Red Pajama, published in 2005, Anna has written and illustrated 14 other children’s picture books, many of which have spent time on The New York Times bestseller list for Children’s Picture Books— including several in the #1 spot.

AD: When my two girls were small and we drove past cows, I would moo; if we saw chickens, I would cluck; goats, I would bleat, etc. But when a llama moved into the field up the road, I had no idea what a llama “said,” so I started saying “llamallamallama” every time we drove by. The story about a small child having trouble going to bed was already in my head; it didn’t take long for that to be a book about “Llama Llama.” It was just so fun to say out loud.

In 2011, Jumpstart Read for the Record, a national early education organization, selected Llama Llama Red Pajama to kick off the group’s annual literacy campaign, which seeks to set a new world record for the largest shared reading experience on a single day. On October 6, 2011, more than two million children and adults read aloud Llama Llama Red Pajama in classrooms, day care centers, and homes across the nation. Her 15th book, Nelly Gnu and Daddy Too, is due out May 2014.

PP: You’ve been a middle school teacher, a school bus driver, a waitress, a mail carrier, and a day care provider. How did these jobs inform your work as a children’s author and illustrator?

As winter sunlight pours into the gabled artist’s studio—an addition to the original 1820s farmhouse built by gristmill owner Jeremiah Barton— Anna puts the finishing touches on her 16th and 17th children’s books, both of which feature “Llama Llama,” a preschool-aged llama introduced in, and made popular by, the success of Anna’s first book.

“I love the smell, texture, and viscosity of oil paint. When I look at paint, I start to salivate!” says Anna.

Llama Llama’s whimsical expression peers out from numerous colorful canvases tacked on wallboards, ready to be assigned their final page number while two shaggy wirehaired pointing griffons and a wheezy bulldog named Rollo mosey underfoot. The spacious studio is dominated by a giant easel and worktable bristling with paintbrushes, tubes of paints, and art supplies. In a cozy breakfast nook, once home to a woodchuck that agreed to leave when Anna bought the property, the author shared her thoughts about her career as an author and illustrator, her life in Vermont, as well as the link between early childhood reading, literacy, and the crucial human attribute of empathy.

PP: Before we get started, readers will want to know: “Why a llama?”

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AD: I think my job as a mail carrier in Putney— my favorite job besides being an author—was particularly fun for me because I had to put a huge stack of randomly ordered mail in delivery sequence using a room lined with mail slots. Creating picture books is a process that requires both linear and three-dimensional thinking; the end product is a piece of performance art that involves an individual I’ve never met. I think I loved the mail delivery job because it challenged my brain to work in linear and three-dimensional ways. It’s probably pretty clear how my work with children informed my children’s books. Being a mother and a teacher of young children gives one a great deal of insight into how small people view the world. And children keep you honest, and honesty is what I attempt to convey in my books. My books are not about pleasing adults; they are drawn and written for kids. They aren’t fancy; I work until the emotional content is conveyed, and then I stop. I don’t spend a lot of extra time on bells and whistles; they can distract from the message I’m expressing.

PP: Tell us about what inspired you to be a children’s book author and illustrator.

AD: As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to write and illustrate children’s books. I grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. My father was a psychiatrist and my mother, who was the daughter of a Baptist minister, raised three girls while writing for children. I learned that it was possible to be a writer by watching my mother

work. [Winifred Luhrmann’s young adult novel, Only Brave Tomorrows, came out in 1992]. My mother also instilled in me a keen interest in reading. Before beginning a book, she showed us the inside cover pages, telling us who the author and the illustrator were. We talked about how many words were on each page and how the pictures moved the story along. My father is a great reader, too. He collects books and, when my sisters and I were little, he read aloud to us from A.A. Milne’s Winnie The Pooh series. My life changed when I discovered Tasha Tudor, who was the illustrator of The Secret Garden and A Little Princess, as well as a children’s book author in her own right. I loved her books, her illustrations, and her lifestyle. My favorite book of hers is the Corgiville Fair, which she wrote and illustrated. Tasha lived a 19th century lifestyle in rural Vermont; she cooked on a woodstove, made her own old-fashioned clothes, and did all her work on a kitchen table in a drafty old farmhouse. She gardened, milked goats, collected eggs, and had dozens of corgi dogs underfoot. As a girl growing up in New Jersey, I fantasized that I was Tasha, surrounded by nature. I am at peace in the woods and much more comfortable around growing things. There is way too much asphalt in Englewood, New Jersey!

PP: Who are the other children’s authors and illustrators who have impacted your life?

AD: Garth Williams, who drew the pictures for the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder; Maurice Sendak’s earlier works, especially Higglety Pigglety Pop! Or There Must Be More to Life. I love the sense of quest in Higglety Pigglety Pop, and how Sendak wrote about uncertainty and fear. I feel he must have had a tremendous sense of anxiety and he addressed this beautifully in his early work. I adore anything by Kevin Henkes, author and illustrator of Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse and Chrysanthemum, among others. Kevin’s warmth and sense of fun are tangible in his books. At the lowest point of my non-career, I would read his books and think, “This man and I are trying to do a very similar thing. Surely there is a place for my work out there if he is being published.”

Ultimately, my books are me; they are intimate and honest expressions of what goes on in my head. I think that’s true of many authors. I try to express the fears and anxieties that I (and many other folks) have while also giving the reader some honest reassurance. Life isn’t easy, especially for children, but it doesn’t have to be terrifying. We have people who love us, and that makes all the difference.

PP: How did your experience at The Putney School shape your career? AD: My entire young life, I felt out of place— a bit of a weirdo—but at Putney, my “artsy” personality fit in and I felt comfortable in my own skin for the first time. The Putney School trusts the individual and lets you be who you are. I was happy from the moment I arrived and that feeling never left. I lived down at Lower Farm, which meant I walked a mile uphill—through a forest, past horses and cows—to get to classes. I loved breathing in the woods and the fields on my way to school. Today, I paint exclusively in oils, and it was at The Putney School where I discovered this medium. My painting teacher, Linn Bruce, communicated his love of physical paint by osmosis—his enthusiasm was contagious. I love the smell, texture, and viscosity of oil paint. When I look at paint, I start to salivate!

PP: After Wesleyan University, you returned to

“As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to write and illustrate children’s books,” says Anna.

Vermont and held a variety of jobs. What made you leave these jobs behind and pursue your dream career as a children’s book author and illustrator?

AD: I moved back to Putney after college and began sending out sample work to various publishers. I got work doing all sorts of things . . . “how-to” and gardening books, gardening cards, and the early reader books for publishers Houghton Mifflin and Henry Holt. I call this period of my life “my hands and flowers days.” After I got married, I moved to the little red schoolhouse on the corner of Aiken and West Hill roads. I worked on my art in a tiny room just big enough for a drafting table. I held a lot of jobs (including teaching at the Greenwood

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School, a junior boarding school down the road from Putney), but kept working on trying to get published, sending out queries and book samples almost every week, but no one would buy my picture book ideas. After my divorce, I was hired as a full-time teacher at the Greenwood School. It became too hard to be both a single parent and a teacher at a boarding school, so for a year or two I stopped writing and illustrating altogether. But, eventually—when my two girls were a little older—I picked up my pencils again. Expecting nothing, I sent out drafts of Llama Llama Red Pajama in early spring of 2004 when my girls were in 5th and 8th grade. In the middle of mud season, I came back to my home on campus to change my shoes. There was a message on my answering machine from a well-respected publishing house. They wanted to publish Llama Llama Red Pajama! Of course, I was extremely excited! But I was late for class, and I went back to teach art class. When I returned home a couple of hours later that same day, I had another message on my answering machine—this one from an editor I deeply admired (Tracy Gates) at Viking Books, and she also wanted to buy Llama Llama Red Pajama. I screamed so loudly that people on campus thought I was being attacked. A bidding war ensued, and I ended up going with Viking because it’s part of Penguin Books, a grand old house, and publisher of one of my favorite children’s classics, The Story of Ferdinand.

PP: You take children’s literacy seriously. You wrote in a Wall Street Journal blog, “How Books Can Teach Your Child to Care,” that “empathy is as important as literacy.” You suggest that there is a link between the two. Can you expand on this? AD: Over the years, working with children both in day care and middle school, I’ve witnessed young people being unkind to each other. Children who act unkindly are usually coming from a place of anger or fear. But if that unkind child is able to empathize—to recognize that those he is hurting have feelings—he can be reached. We have a foundation from which we can work with him to balance his own emotional needs and address the anxieties that cause him to act out.

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The child who doesn’t recognize other children as individuals, the child who sees them as the “other” and not as human beings can be hurtful not only to other children but to entire communities. He lacks empathy and the ripple effects of his inability to care—to empathize—isolate him and make him very hard to reach and grow into a functioning member of our society. Reading and sharing picture books with children at a very early age forges an intimate, human bond that plays an important role in fostering empathy. The act of reading to a child who is sitting in our laps or in close quarters to us tells the child he is valued. When we as parents, teachers, or child care providers read with a child, we are doing much more than teaching the child to read. We are sharing what it means to be human, which is to connect with each other, to share an experience, an emotion, or even just a moment together. Reading builds a loving connection to another human being made over something that is intrinsically and uniquely human—language. It also introduces children to the idea that they are not alone on this earth; that there are others sharing this planet with them and that these others have emotional lives just as they do. When we experience the lives of characters in books, we are drawn out of our own experiences and plunged into the lives of others where we can feel their pain, their excitement, their sadness, or their joy—all of their emotions. Words also introduce different points of view, giving children a way to recognize fears and anxieties in themselves and in others. This is the birthplace of empathy—being able to see life from a different point of view and understand the emotional lives of others. To help children understand others’ points of view and hence plant the seeds of leading an empathic life, I would encourage parents to connect to their children through reading aloud to them when they are young. Infuse your language with emotion and drama. Tell oral stories—family stories, bedtime stories. These can be simple and they don’t have to be original. Play with language and be dramatic; laugh, use funny voices, make silly sounds. If you capture a child’s imagination, you can turn her into a lifelong reader and expand her world exponentially.

Alumni

News

Alumni Books and Music

Please let us know when you have (or plan to have) your work published. Please consider donating a copy to our school library. Contact Alison Frye at 802-387-6273 or afrye@putneyschool.org. We wish these and other present and future alumni authors and musicians well in their endeavors.

children, the authors aim to encourage a healthy movement culture that counters our one-sided sedentary culture, with games that help children develop varied play and movement skills. The authors offer these story games to educators and parents to provide children with a shared space for playing, growing, and learning.

Games Children Sing and Play Joan Hersey Carr Shimer ’45 and Valerie Baadh Garrett Hawthorn Press, 2013 Games Children Sing and Play is a collection of joy-filled games for young children to play, adults to teach, and families and classrooms to experience. It is a book that will be welcomed anywhere there are children who want to play and adults who want to offer them the best foundation for life, along with a sense of security and peace. Games Children Sing and Play is a treasury of 34 favorite, time-tested games for three- to five-year-old children. Not only is this book easy to use with children, but the authors also explain how these enchanting games help children develop in healthy ways. Games Children Sing and Play draws on both spatial dynamics and Waldorf early years education. Having worked extensively with

The book cruises behind the curtain of conventional ideas and witnesses a spacious, infinite consciousness that inspires us when we see no use in living. These poems testify to our own limitless potential. Each poet emanates a radiance, in the flesh and through his words, that is truly his own. Each poet accesses, through the generosity of our creative source, the unique mother lode of his very own self. Each one has a distinct flavor, a unique outrageousness. Each one has found his own groove in and through the richness of what life offers.

There are 68 photographs: 30 stills taken directly from the film, placed throughout the book to reinforce the cinematic analysis, and 38 photographs that include some unusual Renoir family pictures and rare production stills from La Grande Illusion, La Règle du jeu, and Partie de campagne, as well as other historical photos.

Circumference of Forever: Poetry in the Sufi Tradition Stephen Sachs ’56, Loren Ruh Smith, and Tomas Meyers Amador, 2013 Circumference of Forever is proof that bubbly juicy joy, limitless genius, and artistic cooperation are available to us all. Our example affirms that together we can follow our highest heart, our most outrageous ideas, and our deepest longings. Gladly dance forth with blessings and say adieu to any assumptions, expectations, or denials encouraged by mainstream culture.

This is an extended analysis of Renoir’s film, from different perspectives. The first half is largely a discussion of the cinematic technique, with key sequences analyzed shot by shot. The second half approaches the film from many other angles, including its history, the critical reception, Renoir’s life and career, and film theory, e.g., film in relation to music. A case is made that Renoir’s career was inconsistent, especially after La Règle du jeu, but also during the 1930s. And rather than emphasizing the humanist, anti-war thrust of La Grande Illusion, the film is approached as a work of art that is deeply expressive cinematically.

In Search of La Grande Illusion: A Critical Appreciation of Jean Renoir’s Elusive Masterpiece Nicholas Macdonald ’62 McFarland & Company, Inc., 2014 Putney post

The Torch Singer Book One: An Overnight Sensation

Can’t and Won’t: Stories

Robert Westbrook ’63

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014

Moon Deer Productions, 2013 Amazon Kindle Edition The Torch Singer is a sweeping historical saga that takes the reader from the horrors of Nazi-occupied Poland to the glittery excesses of Hollywood in the 1940s and ’50s via the rise and fall of Sonya Saint-Amant, a B-singer who schemes her way to fame and brief glory, breaking all the rules. Sonya is a bad girl heroine in the tradition of Scarlett O’Hara, Becky Sharp, and Mildred Pierce, a woman driven to desperate deeds by desperate circumstances. This is a page-turning epic of fortune-hunters and dreamers set adrift in the war years, a story that spans two volumes and two Hollywood generations— narrated with dark humor by Sonya’s son, Jonno, a child actor in a hit TV sitcom who gradually becomes ensnared in his mother’s web of ambition, blackmail, and murder. The Torch Singer is a journey through the shadowlands of fame. Book Two, An Almost Perfect Ending, will be published in the spring of 2014. As the child of Hollywood parents, Robert Westbrook grew up in the world he writes about. He is the author of two critically-acclaimed mystery series, including Ancient Enemy, nominated for a Shamus Award, the Best P.I. Novel of 2002, and Intimate Lies, a family memoir, published by HarperCollins in 1995. His first novel, The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart, was made into an MGM film.

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Lydia Davis ’65 A new collection of short stories from the woman Rick Moody has called “the best prose stylist in America.” Her stories may be literal one-liners: the entirety of “Bloomington” reads, “Now that I have been here for a little while, I can say with confidence that I have never been here before.” Or they may be lengthier investigations of the havoc wreaked by the most mundane disruptions to routine: in “A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates,” a professor receives a gift of thirty-two small chocolates and is paralyzed by the multitude of options she imagines for their consumption. The stories may appear in the form of letters of complaint; they may be extracted from Flaubert’s correspondence; or they may be inspired by the author’s own dreams, or the dreams of friends. What does not vary throughout Can’t and Won’t, Lydia Davis’s fifth collection of stories, is the power of her finely-honed prose. Davis is sharply observant; she is wry or witty or poignant. Above all, she is refreshing. Davis writes with bracing candor and sly humor about the quotidian—revealing the mysterious, the foreign, the alienating, and the pleasurable within the predictable patterns of daily life.

Mob Boss: The Life of Little Al D’Arco, the Man Who Brought Down the Mafia Tom Robbins ’67 and Jerry Capeci

The Caregivers: A Support Group’s Stories of Slow Loss, Courage, and Love Nell Lake ’84

Thomas Dunne Books, 2013

Scribner, 2014

Mob Boss is a riveting narrative, and a compelling biography from two prominent mob experts recounting the life and times of the first acting boss of an American Mafia family to turn government witness. Alfonso “Little Al” D’Arco, the former acting boss of the Luchese crime family, was the highest-ranking mobster to ever turn government witness when he flipped in 1991. His decision to flip prompted many others to make the same choice, including John Gotti’s top aide, Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, and his testimony sent more than fifty mobsters to prison. In Mob Boss, award-winning news reporters Tom Robbins and Jerry Capeci team up for this unparalleled account of D’Arco’s life and the New York mob scene that he embraced for four decades.

In 2010, journalist Nell Lake began sitting in on the weekly meetings of a local hospital’s caregivers support group. Soon, members invited her into their lives. For two years, she brought empathy, insight, and an eye for detail to understanding Penny, a fifty-year-old botanist caring for her aging mother; Daniel, a survivor of Nazi Germany who tends his ailing wife; William, whose wife suffers from Alzheimer’s; and others with whom all caregivers will identify.

Until the day he switched sides, D’Arco lived and breathed the oldschool gangster lessons he learned growing up in Brooklyn and fine tuned on the mean streets of Little Italy. But when he learned he was marked to be whacked, D’Arco quit the mob. His defection decimated his crime family and opened a window on mob secrets going back a hundred years. After speaking with D’Arco, the authors reveal unprecedented insights, exposing shocking secrets and troublesome truths about a city where a famous pizza parlor doubled as a Mafia center for multi-million-dollar heroin deals, where hitmen carried out murders dressed as women, and where kidnapping a celebrity newsman’s son was deemed appropriate revenge for the father’s satirical novel.

Witnessing acts of devotion and frustration, lessons in patience and in letting go, Lake illuminates the intimate exchanges of giving and receiving care. Her work considers important and timely social issues with humanity, warmth, and concern: How can we care for the aging, ill, and dying with skill and compassion, even as the costs and labors of care increase? How might the medical profession take into account the needs of caregivers as well as patients? Lake understands that broad policy questions are experienced personally every day in the difficult but rewarding lives of caregivers everywhere. The Caregivers is a thoughtful and tenderly reported depiction of the real-life predicaments that evoke these crucial questions. The Caregivers offers a humane, realistic, and lifeaffirming portrait of what it means to give and receive love.

MUSIC

Admission Matters: What Students and Parents Need to Know About Getting Into College Third Edition Joyce Vining Morgan, Former Faculty, with Sally P. Springer and Jon Reider

Editor’s Note: We’ve been thinking about how best to let you know about the many alumni who release music, too. Adding it in the section that deals with publications seems logical. If you’ve released music that’s available for purchase through the normal domains, let us know, and we’ll include it here. putneypost@putneyschool.org. All music available and Google Play

iTunes

The latest album by Heather Nova ’81 (Heather Frith), 300 Days at Sea, was released in late 2012. She’s been touring in support of the album across Europe. Learn more and listen at heathernova.com.

Jossey-Bass, 2013 Getting into college has never been more complicated or competitive. Parents and students need expert guidance to navigate the maze of college admissions. This thoroughly updated edition of Admission Matters is the best source, covering the whole process for any applicant. The authors offer great practical advice for selecting the right school, writing effective essays, navigating financial aid, and much more. No matter what type of school a college-bound student may select, Admission Matters will give them the edge they need. The book offers an essential resource for understanding the admission process for all students applying to college, addresses the most recent changes to the college application process, and includes new sections with information for international students, transfer students, and students with learning disabilities, as well as expanded advice for athletes, artists, and homeschoolers.

Ben Winship ’77, as half of the duo Growling Old Men, has released the album Chicken Feed & Baling Twine. The Jackson Hole News & Guide praised its “fine vocal harmonies . . . and . . . flawless picking, strumming, and filling,” calling it “one of the finest regional releases in years.”

Alumni

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Blake Hazard ’94 released a solo album, The Eleanor Islands. Blake is the female half of the band The Submarines. Learn more at facebook. com/blakehazardmusic. Diamond Doves, the duo of Wyndham BoylanGarnett ’02 and Nick Kinsey, released the album Eat Your Heart Out in January of 2013, and their new single, “1 Good Reason,” is also available for download online. diamonddoves.bandcamp.com. Pack Sampson ’06’s two new songs, “Poetry” and “Route 1,” are both available for download online.

Emily van Evera ’73, whose versatile and expressive interpretation of early vocal music has earned her an international reputation, has released several classical recordings lately, including Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, and Bach’s Trauermusik.

Editor’s Note: Through the Prisms of the Pines, the posthumous collection of poems and woodcuts by Kari Prager ’65 that appeared in our Spring 2013 issue, is now available on Amazon.com. Special recognition and thanks go to Robin Barber ’65 and Gail Reed Prager ’68 for seeing this project through to its publication.

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Alumni

News

Alumni Events In early December, Emily Jones and Brian D. Cohen traveled to China to meet with current parents and alumni as well as to visit schools with an eye towards possible school exchange opportunities. Traveling first to Beijing, Emily and Brian were joined by Iris Wang—a Putney board member and current parent—to welcome parents and alumni to a reception at the newly-opened China Club in Ritan Park. Afterwards, they visited the China Central Academy of Fine Arts and Beijing Middle School No. 4, also in Beijing. Emily was featured in a nationally broadcast video at Sohu studios (something like a Chinese Yahoo) where

she spoke about progressive education. The Putney contingent then flew to Chengdu, where they toured the Chengdu Waldorf School, one of very few schools of its kind in China, which had a warmth and breadth reminiscent of Putney. In Chongqing, Emily and Brian visited the Chongqing University School of Fine Arts and made the acquaintance of several artists, including Le Xi, brother of Putney’s Chinese language teacher, Cai Silver. The trip culminated in a parent reception in Shanghai. Throughout the trip, Emily and Brian were touched by the hospitality and warmth of our students’ families, many of whom spoke of their deep appreciation for Putney’s educational philosophy and the experience their children were enjoying on campus.

Putney Parent/Alumni Reception, Shanghai. Top row, left to right: Bao Jinghai (Harry ’15’s father), Yan Chen (Julia ’16’s mother), Cao Fengying (Gary ’17’s mother), Gary’s English teacher, Iris Wang (Derek ’16’s mother, current Putney trustee). Bottom row, left to right: Zhao Hui (Alex ’15’s father), Li Yi (Magy ’14’s mother), Zhou Lina (Harry ’15’s mother), Emily Jones, Brian Cohen, Jessie Cai (consultant,) Shi Liyuan (Annie ’17’s mother)

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Putney Parent/Alumni Reception, Beijing. Top row, left to right: Kang Zhaohui (Kai ’17’s father), Carl Crook, visiting father and son, David Crook ’07, not identified, An Lin (Yodi ’14’s father), visiting father and son (Tony) and brother, Danny, school consultant; bottom row, left to right: not identified, Ma Weinan (Jack ’15’s mother), Iris Wang (Derek ’16’s mother, current Putney trustee), not identified, Bill Rosoff ’64, Emily Jones, Wang Ruimin (Kai ’17’s mother), not identified, Iris’s friend Laurie.

Memoriam in

After obtaining her PhD in economics from Radcliffe, Helen taught economics at Swarthmore and then at Bryn Mawr College for more than three decades. She also directed summer academic programs at Haverford. In 1988, Bryn Mawr recognized Helen’s excellence in teaching and scholarship by awarding her the Mary Hale Chase Endowed Chair of the Social Sciences. Upon her retirement in 1990, she was named Mary Hale Chase professor emeritus of the social sciences at Bryn Mawr.

Helen Manning Hunter ’39 Helen Manning Hunter, who was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1921 died October 17, 2103, in Haverford, Pennsylvania. She was 92 years old. Helen was the daughter of Frederick Johnson Manning, history professor at Swarthmore College, and Helen Taft Manning, history professor and dean at Bryn Mawr. Helen’s grandfather, William Howard Taft, was the 27th president and the 10th chief justice of the United States. Helen graduated from Putney in 1939 and received her BA from Smith College in 1943. In 1945, she married Holland Hunter, professor of economics at Haverford College.

Helen is survived by her husband of 68 years, Holland Hunter, three children, eight grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, as well as by her sister, Caroline Manning Cunningham ’41, and Caroline’s daughter, Conti Cunningham ’78.

Pete Schauffler ’40 Peter Page Schauffler, of Kittery Point, Maine, died at home July 28, 2013, after a brief illness. He was 90. Pete was born in New Rochelle, New York, in 1922 to Bennet and Marjorie Page Schauffler. He grew up in Washington, DC, where his parents worked for the Roosevelt administration. He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1943 and served as radar officer on the submarine USS Sea Leopard during World War II. He was honorably discharged from the Navy in 1946 with the rank of lieutenant junior grade. After the war, Pete received a PhD in political science from Harvard, and worked for the Budget Bureau in Washington, DC, before moving in 1953 to Philadelphia, where he later became deputy mayor for commerce from 1953 to 1968. He married Mary Strawbridge in 1958. In 1971, Pete returned with his family to Washington, where he directed various agencies addressing issues in transportation, Putney post

energy, and governance, including the Aviation Advisory Commission, the Bio-Fuels Council, and the Committee on the Constitutional System. Throughout his career Pete advocated for improvements in government transportation policy, renewable fuel sources, and structural reforms in regional and national government. In 2002, he and his wife moved to Kittery to be nearer their children and grandchildren. Pete is survived by his wife, Mary, their three children, and three grandchildren. Pete’s sister, Jing Schauffler Lyman ’43, died in November of 2013, and her obituary follows in this section.

performed with her music group, The Festival Folk Ensemble (a group that included many of her grown children and grandchildren) for over 30 years. Mansi was also an avid proponent of organic foods for her whole adult life, being well ahead of her time in that respect, and she was a guiding light for that lifestyle. She was also an advocate for pacifism, equality, and respect for the world’s cultures, and was a nature lover and early backto-the-lander. Recently, she could be seen as an iconic figure gracefully enjoying the Santa Fe bandstand, and was dancing on the plaza only a few weeks before her death. She was, truly, a Santa Fe treasure. Mansi is survived by her four children and eight grandchildren, as well as by her sister Elizabeth Johnson Stickney ’45, Priscilla Johnson Paetsch ’50, and was predeceased by her sister Sarah Jane Johnson Shaw ’48 and her brother Harry Johnson ’43.

Mansi Johnson Kern ’42 Helena “Mansi” McClure Johnson Kern, 89, of Tesuque, New Mexico, died peacefully in her own home on August 5, 2013. Mansi, the oldest of five children, was born to the late Helena Modjeska Chase Johnson Drea and Harry McClure Johnson on April 16, 1924. Mansi, a niece of Carmelita Hinton, graduated from Putney in 1942 and then attended Bennington College for three years, leaving due to illness. She finished her teaching degree at Colorado College in 1970. She married Val Sigstedt, then Ken Kern; mostly, though, Mansi raised her four children as a single parent. She moved to Santa Fe for a few years in 1951, then returned permanently in 1963. Mansi had a life-long career as a folk dance teacher with both children and adults. She also performed as a professional musician and accordionist all over the country, and was a violinist for the Santa Fe Symphony in the early days. Mansi collected, interviewed, and archived many of the Spanish Colonial New Mexican folk music and dances and musicians in the mid-sixties. She went into the remote villages and played and talked with the viejitos, and

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Jing’s parents, Bennet and Marjorie Page Schauffler, were active in the progressive education movement from its early days in the late 1920s. The two were among the founding parents, and continued as employees, of the Windward School founded in Mamaroneck, New York in 1926, a coed progressive school that Jing and her brothers attended. In the early 1930s, her family moved to Washington, DC, where her father took a position at the National Labor Relations Board, and her mother worked to help resettle rural families displaced by the Great Depression through Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal Resettlement Administration. Jing came to Putney after studying for a year at Switzerland’s Institut des Jeunes Filles. The outbreak of World War II forced Jing’s father to come rescue her from Switzerland. The two fled to Paris and then Bordeaux, escaping from Europe by ship. Later in her life, speaking about Putney, where she treasured both the rugged outdoor work and the school’s commitment to the arts, she told with pride and humor a story of receiving a package containing two items critical to the Putney experience—a long skirt, good for school dances, as well as a double-bitted axe, which she knew how to use to fell sizeable trees. After Putney she studied at Swarthmore College, graduating with a degree in English and history. At Swarthmore she met Dick Lyman, and the two married in 1947. They were described as a couple that “emanated goodwill,” which became a cornerstone of their effective leadership.

Jing Schauffler Lyman ’43 Elizabeth “Jing” Schauffler Lyman was born in Philadelphia on February 23, 1925 and died on November 21, 2013 after a long illness. Named after a beloved aunt, Jing acquired her nickname when her mother spontaneously called her “the Lady Jingly Jones,” after a character in a poem by Edward Lear. Jing was a pioneer who spent her adult life making change happen as a community leader, activist, and volunteer. She battled discriminatory housing practices in California, worked to increase philanthropic funding for programs aimed at girls and women nationwide, and promoted self-employment, entrepreneurship, and job creation for women of all ages, cultures, and income levels in the United States and abroad.

Jing and Dick moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and had four children. Dick then accepted a position teaching British history at Stanford, and the family headed west. When Dick became Stanford’s seventh president in 1970, Jing carved out a unique position of influence for herself. As the women’s liberation movement took hold of the nation, Jing advocated for the women of Stanford, focusing especially on increasing the number of women hired to tenure-track faculty positions. Additionally, she personally supported and nurtured the Center for Research on Women (now the Clayman Institute for Gender Research), which was founded in 1974 as the first research institution dedicated solely to gender equality. That center, which is now considered one of the nation’s most distinguished research centers devoted to gender research, launched the Jing Lyman Lecture Series in 2010 to commemorate Jing’s legacy and to recognize past and current contributions to gender equality.

In 1991 the Stanford Alumni Association bestowed its highest honor upon Jing and Dick, awarding them the degrees of Uncommon Woman and Uncommon Man respectively. Rarely granted, this degree honors extraordinary service to the university. Jing was the first woman to receive the award. Jing is survived by her children, Jennifer Lyman, Holly Antolini, Timothy Lyman, and Christopher Lyman, as well as four grandchildren. Her husband and her brother, Pete Schauffler ’40, predeceased her.

James Crowell ’44 James Crowell was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, on September 1, 1925. He died on January 11, 2014. After his graduation from Putney, James received a physics degree at Yale University in the ROTC program. After his service in the Navy, he was instrumental in the startup of an electrical company that made heaters for in-flight meal service. Following 17 years teaching science at Cardigan Mountain School in Canaan, New Hampshire, he retired to Canaan Street where he enjoyed playing tennis, renovating a house built in the 1840s, rowing his shell, ice boating on Canaan Street Lake, and being a good neighbor. James navigated a sailboat from the icebergs of Labrador to the beaches of Venezuela, skied the 10th mountain hut system in Colorado, canoed the boundary waters of Minnesota, and summited the 14,505 foot Mount Whitney in California. Known as a true gentleman by all who knew him, he will be deeply missed by his wife Debby, and his children, Debbie and Tom.

Markwick K. Smith Jr. ’45 Mark Smith died peacefully at his home on February 20, 2014, surrounded by family. Mark spent his last years ignoring the gathering Parkinson’s symptoms and continuing to enjoy exercise, music, humor, the sounds of words in poetry and writing, world news, sports, and the natural beauty of New England. Mark was born in Brooklyn on February 14, 1928 to Markwick Kern Smith Sr., an engineer for AT&T and Elizabeth Morning Smith, a dedicated math teacher. Mark established his love of nature during his six years at Putney. Next, at MIT, he earned a bachelor of science in geology and a PhD in geophysics, interrupted by a tour in the Navy repairing naval radar systems. He met his wife, Martia, while working at Putney’s summer camp and they were married in Boston in 1951. In 1954, they moved with their first daughter to Dallas, where Mark began his career as a research geophysicist and director of seismic research with Geophysical Services Inc. This led, with the help of his talented research group, to the digital seismic program of the 1960s, which changed the geophysical exploration for petroleum. He eventually headed GSI, as president, from 19671969, followed by years as vice president of the parent company, Texas Instruments. In 1967, Mark was elected into the National Academy of Engineering and later into the Vermont Academy of Science and Engineering. He loved Dallas, his job, horseback riding in his little spare time and especially the life-long friends he and Martia made there.

In 1973, he moved with Martia and their youngest daughter to Vermont, where he continued to consult for T.I. and others in Europe for another ten years as a management consultant and longrange planner. In the following years, Mark built a vacation home in East Corinth, Vermont, and earned an MFA in writing from Vermont College, which resulted in a book, Advantages and Other Stories. Mark enjoyed travel with friends and family, but especially loved coming home to the small towns and rural areas of Vermont where he could ski, play tennis, dance, work in the woods, and write. Mark will be missed by his wife, Martia, his four children, twelve grandchildren, four greatgrandchildren, and his extended family and friends around the country.

John Temple Swing ’46 John Temple Swing, a 1946 graduate of Putney, died October 4, 2013, surrounded by his family. John, who along with his siblings was one of Putney’s early students, served for many years on the school’s board of trustees, and as its chair from 1986 to 1989. In August 1989, the board passed a resolution expressing its appreciation for John’s service, praising his efforts to “mobilize, organize, and lead the board through a critical and constructive period. . . [which] laid the foundation for a stronger and better school.” John also “initiated and successfully completed the first major capital campaign” for Putney, and strengthened the “soul, heart, and body of the school” during his time on the board. Colleagues from John’s time on the board expressed their gratitude as well upon the occasion of his death. Sarah Kerlin Gray Gund ’60, board chair from 1995-2002, remarked, “He truly valued a relationship with the natural world that was at the heart of the life of the school. He truly valued the kind of honest intellectual and

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personal relationships that characterized studentfaculty communications. When John committed to involving himself in an endeavor, he worked hard and cared deeply; The Putney School board was all the better because of his membership on it.” John was born on June 7, 1929, to Betty and Raymond Gram Swing, she a noted suffragist and he a prominent print and later broadcast journalist. John graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 1950 and from Yale Law School in 1953. After practicing law in Salisbury, Connecticut, where he was a member of the town’s board of selectmen, John joined the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City in 1963 and helped to modernize that organization in his 30 years of service. He became its executive vice president and, from 1985 to 1986, served as president pro tempore. In 1993, John assumed the presidency of the Foreign Policy Association, and in 1995 became its president emeritus. Working closely with Ambassador Elliot Richardson, John helped negotiate the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. He became a prominent advocate for the treaty, founding the Rule of Law Committee for the Oceans, a primary source of information for treaty supporters. John was a founding chairman of the Non-Profit Coordinating Committee of New York, which represents 1,000 New York City non-profit organizations, and was also active with The Train Foundation, the Northcote Parkinson Fund, and the Century Association. John is survived by his wife, Devereux Loy Powell Swing; a son, the artist Johnny Swing ’80; his daughter, Jenny Swing; a stepdaughter, Susan Gewirth Kumar ’67; as well as a daughterin-law, a son-in-law, and five grandchildren. His siblings, Peter Gram Swing ’40 and Sally Swing Shelley ’41, as well as his stepson, Jim Gewirth ’65, predeceased him.

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John, who loved music, played the viola and sang with the Yale Alumni Chorus. An avid sailor, he also enjoyed cooking and travel, especially in Canada, where he and Devi visited every province from Yukon to Newfoundland and Labrador. Answering a questionnaire sent by Yale Law School to members of the class of 1953, John wrote, of the deep and lasting effect that 9/11 had on him, “In the end, there is only one choice: to lead an ethical life.” Asked what epitaph he would write for himself, John wrote, “A player on many stages, occasionally in leading parts.” Said Barbara Barnes ’41, Putney’s director from 1984-89, “John believed in the important role Putney could play in the lives of students, faculty, family, and society—and he had a great laugh!”

Larry Richardson ’49 David “Larry” Richardson passed away peacefully at home August 3, 2013, after a lingering illness. The second of four brothers, he was born on February 9, 1931, in Lynn, Massachusetts, to Henry Martyn Richardson and Mary Estella Larrick. He spent his childhood in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where his father, Henry, was an executive with the General Electric Plastics Division. After graduating from Putney in 1949, Larry enrolled in a joint BA/BS program with St. Lawrence University and MIT Following graduation in 1954 he continued at MIT, completing a master’s of aeronautical engineering in 1955. Larry was a rocket scientist. His work in the nascent MIT gas turbine laboratory and early supersonic wind tunnels landed him a position with Pratt and Whitney’s United Aircraft Research Center in Hartford, Connecticut.

While at UAR, he met the love of his life, Virginia Ann Kueny, a beautiful mathematician and musician from Michigan. During their courting, Larry ran a ski house in Vermont for UAR friends, which developed into a life-long love for skiing and travel together. They married in 1960. In 1959, Larry was invited to join the Arthur D. Little Company, commencing a long, fascinating career. During the next 40 years his consulting work varied from the design of chicken rotisseries to space suits. He cultivated lasting friendships with coworkers and clients alike. He spoke most fondly of his decade-long work with NASA. Today Larry’s retro-reflectors are the only experiments still in use on the lunar surface. Larry and Virginia created a beautiful home in Lexington, Massachusetts, where they raised their three children, David, Patrick, and Lisa. They also spent eight years in Alexandria, Virginia, during the 1980s while Larry worked in the ADL Washington office automating the US Postal Service. Larry and Virginia instilled in all of their children and grandchildren a love for skiing, boating, fishing, camping, travel, and, of course, music. For almost thirty years, they spent holidays and weekends in Falmouth, on Cape Cod, retiring there full-time in 2011. Music was always an important part of Larry’s life. He and Ginny shared an enthusiastic love of symphony, ballet, and opera. They traveled throughout the U.S. and Europe, visiting premiere opera houses and enjoying numerous productions of their favorite operas. Ever the engineer and craftsman, Larry was known for his tinkering skills. In his spare time he enjoyed working on cars, repairing stringed instruments, and helping his neighbors. For many years he maintained the tower clock of the First Parish Unitarian Church where he and his family attended. As young newly-weds, Larry and Ginny dreamed of owning trendy modern furniture. Instead of going without, they lovingly designed and built the modern furniture that still fills their home. Larry is survived by his wife, Virginia, their three children, Lisa, Patrick, and David, four grandchildren, and his brothers John Richardson ’56 and Jim Richardson ’59.

She moved to San Francisco in 1965 and worked as a Head Start teacher, as well as a waitress and a flower girl at the Spaghetti Factory. Following the untimely death of both her parents in a plane crash in 1970, Linda left teaching and began following her passions, one of which was for antique quilts. Along with a childhood friend, she opened a quilt store in Marin County, curated museum shows, and immersed herself in the world of quilts. Linda lived in San Anselmo for 25 years.

Phil Fox ’55

Robert DeWolfe ’60

Philip Fox, 76, died unexpectedly in Bangor, Maine, on October 4, 2103, as the result of a massive stroke. He was born September 1, 1937 in Boston. He grew up in Williamstown, Massachusetts. After Putney, Phil attended Antioch College in Ohio and Wayne State University in Detroit, where he earned his PhD in drama. He became an instructor at Wayne and a manager of the university’s drama program and theater’s box office for 40 years. During this time he was a frequent actor in area and university productions. Following his retirement from Wayne, he moved to Johnson City, Tennessee, to join friends and enjoy a milder climate. Once there, Phil found new opportunities to act, and he joined the Johnson City Arts Council, a group from which he recently completed his term as president. He also became an active member of St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church.

Rev. Robert H. DeWolfe, son of the late Dr. and Mrs. D. C. DeWolfe, of Putney, died July 6 in Thailand, where he had been living in retirement. After Putney, Marlboro College, and a tour in Vietnam, he received a master’s of sacred theology degree from then Berkely School of Divinity. After further study, he was ordained an Episcopal priest. Rob served parishes in Maine, Vermont, and Honolulu. At one time he was director of the detox center at University of Maine-Farmington. Rob leaves his children, Thomas and Rebekah, his brothers Dan DeWolfe ’50 and Tom DeWolfe ’56, a niece, and three nephews.

In his retirement, Phil became a multi-month summer resident of Southwest Harbor, Maine, a place that became his emotional home and where he shared a summer house with his brothers, Tom and Ken, and their families. He loved Mt. Desert Island and Acadia National Park, where he rode his bicycle on the carriage paths and savored the ocean views. He became an active and favorite member of the Acadia Repertory Theater, appearing in many mysteries and comedies. He was an active member of the Causeway Club, a supporter of the Harbor House, and a tour guide for visitors arriving on cruise ships. Phil was the loving elder of a 22-member Fox clan, made up of three brothers and two sisters, all with spouses, four nephews, four nieces, and their families. A celebration of his life will take place next summer in Maine, probably in early August.

Music was another of Linda’s passions. She relished her participation in a women’s percussion band, with which she marched in Washington, DC, for women’s and LGBT rights. She was sang in the Mendocino Women’s Choir and Mendocino Music Festival. She was proud to have started the “Heartbeats,” a percussion group she assembled in Albion to march on International Women’s Day. Linda was passionate about many socially progressive causes and about the environment. She dearly loved all four-legged friends. She studied with anthropologist Angeles Arrien, whose work inspired the next part of Linda’s life. In 1997, at the age of 55, she moved to Albion to create a retreat center. Linda called it “Heart and Hands.” Between 1996 and 2009, hundreds of people came to Hearts and Hands to be restored through writing, yoga, meditation, movement, and Womenclan workshops. Linda is survived by her lifelong friend Julie Silber, her life companion Michele Tellier, her sister, Elisabeth Reuther Dickmeyer ’65, and an extended family that includes Victor Dickmeyer ’06.

Linda Reuther ’60 Linda Ann Reuther passed away on September 20, 2013, at the age of 71. Linda was born August 24, 1942, the first child of Walter P. and May Wolf Reuther of Detroit. Walter P. Reuther was an ardent labor leader and the founder of the UAW. Linda grew up in Detroit and environs, attended Putney, and later graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in education.

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three nieces. In addition to her sister Tina, she was pre-deceased by her mother, Margo Taylor Haynes. A memorial service and celebration of Sues’s life will be held at the family home in Boxford in the spring of 2014.

Former Faculty and Staff

Robin retired to Upstate New York in 1985. She is survived by her daughters, Jocelyn Lash ’72 and Allison Campbell ’80.

Susan Davis ’76 Susan “Sues” Haynes Davis, of Boxford, Massachusetts, unexpectedly passed away from a pulmonary embolism on September 30, 2013. Born in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on March 13, 1958, Sues was a gifted artist and craftsperson who was devoted to her family and friends. She loved animals and befriended stray cats, dogs, birds, and all creatures great and small. She was devoted to the arts and with friends in Boxford helped to develop the Boxford Arts Council, which brought regional and local musicians to perform at the Apple Festival and in other local venues. She developed a family business, Suz Bath and Body, which specializes in organic soaps and lotions. She developed a network of friends and colleagues and was frequently seen at local and regional fairs. Her interests in art and music began at Putney, where she also learned printmaking, and where her interest in ceramics was born. After high school, Sues attended California College of Arts and Crafts. In 1977, following the loss of her youngest sister, Mary Christine (Tina) ’78, Sues joined friends in Iowa City and bicycled to Seattle. She remained there to study ceramics at University of Washington, where she received a BA in fine arts. While in Seattle, she met William (Bill) Davis, whom she married in 1984. In Boxford, Sues produced ceramics from her studio and then her home for fifteen years. She then focused on screenwriting for the next five years, which included creating pilots with local Boxford friends. Sues was dedicated to conservation and preservation of open space; with her siblings, she contributed and bargain-sold approximately 250 acres of land to Essex County Greenbelt, BTA/BOLT, the Boxford Conservation Commission, and the Town of Boxford. Sues leaves her husband, Bill, their two sons, Patrick and Liam, and her aged dog, Zeus, all of Boxford, her sister, Anne, two brothers, Charles ’71 and Robert, her father, Edward Haynes, her stepmother, Beverly, as well as six nephews and

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came to understand how her artistic expression blossomed from a foundation of reverence for the natural world and for the good in people. She encouraged my strengths, never focusing on my weaknesses. I’ve drawn lifelong inspiration from Robin’s example of determination and perseverance as an artist, regardless of the ups and downs of career and the events of life. A collage she created one year sums up her credo: ‘Bloom Where You’re Planted.’”

Phyllis Rees

Robin Spry-Campbell Robin Spry-Campbell passed away on October 23, 2013, at the age of 90. Robin was born in Schenectady on November 12, 1922. Robin attended Skidmore College as one of the youngest members of her class, studying arts education. She joined the United States Army in 1943 and was stationed at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Aberdeen, Maryland, where her artistic talents were put to use for weapon design—an irony she relished as an ardent and life-long civil rights and peace activist. She later shipped to Germany where she met her first husband, Bill Spry. Upon returning stateside, she participated in the WPA project and attended Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Eventually, she accepted a position at Putney, where she worked for 35 years. Robin’s character and sense for justice are remembered by her former students and friends. Linda Raynolds ’70 wrote “Hearing of Robin’s passing caused me to reflect on the incalculable gifts she bestowed on me as a Putney student. The simplest one—she got me started in sculpture, which I have pursued ever since. More profound was her example of how to be in the world as a person of conviction, and as an artist. As a student I scarcely appreciated Robin’s commitment to human rights and the cause of world peace. Over our long friendship, most of it communicated through the written word, I

Phyllis Clayton Rees, much-loved wife of former Putney director Peter Rees and mother of Amy Rees and Jenny Rees, died peacefully October 8, 2012, at home with her family. She was born in Oakland, California, in 1926. She led an amazing adventuresome life, living in France and traveling around Europe for years as a young woman, while supporting herself as an artist. She married Peter in 1961, and they were best friends as well as lovers for over 50 years. She supported him with enthusiasm in everything he wanted to do. They had met while hiking, and they spent their honeymoon in Baxter Park, Maine. They moved to Nigeria with baby Amy in 1964. Camping out in animal parks in East Africa, learning Yoruba, and driving north over the Sahara and to Norway were among her adventures. A lover of music, hiking, sailing, art, nature, friends, and family, Phyllis led a full life despite increasing challenges of rheumatoid arthritis and other disabling conditions. Up to the end, her unwavering optimism and ability to cope without complaint were inspiring to everyone who knew her. Phyllis was also a fine cook, gardener, cat-lover, and friend to many. She is known locally for her beautiful art work. Her paintings of natural scenes have been shown in several local galleries, and the National Park Service published a book of her paintings on intimate scenes of nature in Acadia National Park. Phyllis is survived by her husband, Peter, her daughters, Amy, and Jenny, her grandchildren, and an extended family. Editor’s Note: We receive news of deceased alumni through many channels; however, we do not always find on accompanying obituary. Two alumni fell into this category during the production of this issue, and we wanted to share their names:

Polly Braun Middleton ’42 Jamie Kanzler ’07

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