125 G E O R G I A N
A N N I V E R S A R Y 1 8 9 3 to 2 0 1 8
QUASQUICENTENNIAL S P E C I A L
E D I T I O N
1952 A visiting student from Iraq explains geography and conditions of his native land.
GEORGIAN
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S V O L U M E 9 0 N O . 0 2
Introduction
Page 01
Letter
Page 02
Early Years
The Great Beginning to the Great War
1893-1919
Page 04
Roaring Twenties
Economic Prosperity and Social Energy
1920-1929
Page 12
Turbulent Times
The Depression and World War II
1930-1945
Page 18
Boom Times
Postwar George School
1946-1959
Page 24
Changing Times
The Sixties and Seventies
1960-1979
Page 36
End of a Century
The Eighties and Nineties
1980-1999
Page 50
New Century
The Beginning of the New Millennium
2000-2018
Page 58
G E O R G E
S C H O O L
Q UA S Q U I C E N T E N N IA L
1892 Architectural drawing of Main Building by Addison Hutton, architect.
Friends, This special quasquicentennial edition of the Georgian celebrates the 125th anniversary of George School. It is a compendium of photos, stories, and memories generously shared by our alumni and pulled from our archives.
This anniversary edition is designed as a companion to the two earlier books that
tell the story of George School. The first celebrated our fiftieth anniversary and is the History of George School 1893-1943, published in 1943 by the George School Alumni Association and authored by its History Committee, George H. Nutt, chairman. The second celebrated our one hundredth anniversary and is George School: The History of a Quaker Community by Kingdon W. Swayne ’37 and published by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1992. Alumni memories from our earliest years were drawn from these two earlier books.
Our entire editorial team extends their thanks to all of our community mem-
bers who shared their favorite memories of George School and our amazing teachers, classes, teams, and friendships. Enjoy,
Susan Quinn, Georgian Editor You can learn more by visiting our George School history timeline available online at www.georgeschool.org/history.
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1897 VITAL STATI STICS: graduating class of 26 Pennsylvanians, 9 from neighboring states; total enrollment of 168; 86 percent Quaker, 14 percent other white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. 2017 VITAL STATI STICS: students from 19 states and 44 countries; total enrollment of 537; 10.6 percent Quaker, 37.6 percent US students of color.
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GEORGIAN 125TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
As George School prepares to celebrate our 125th anniversary, I find in our past and present the inspiration to be optimistic about our future—for I witness the enduring power of the essential George School. Our Quaker roots are very much alive in the search for Truth and our commitment to honor and feed the Inward Light in all members of our community. While much about the school has changed and much will continue to change, the fundamental values of George School endure—to be expressed in ever new and meaningful ways. I have the rare honor to champion George School’s unique capacity to shape the minds and character of graduates who are empowered to live in the world as it should be, and not settle for it as it is. At the beginning of this special year, two reflections come to mind. First, the mission and work of George School have shaped not only our graduates, but those whose lives they touch. In a time when it is natural to wonder what one person can possibly do to better the world, I am reassured that our graduates have collectively improved and enriched the lives of thousands of people across generations, cultures, and nations. Second, in conversations about the 125th anniversary, many people tell me they recognize the impact and importance of George School for the future, as well as
the past. For them, as for me, our celebration of the past expresses hope for new generations of students. So, what is this “essential George School?” It is our dedication to mind, spirit, and body in the name of the Quaker testimonies, or “disciplines” as some called them in the past. It is the mind and the soul’s search for Truth; the commitment to value one another and seek wisdom together; and the capacity to build meaningful relationships and communities across cultures and nations, forming graduates to be citizens of the world. I commend this issue of the Georgian to you. It is an enjoyable and moving compendium to a trip down George School’s memory lane. It is also an invitation to discern how our storied past is a springboard to our bright future. With you, it is a joy to see the school and its wonderful community in such a way that the past, present, and future are meaningfully linked. The work we share will indeed have an impact for generations to come. In Friendship,
J. Samuel Houser
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1911 Main Building. 1900 Thoreau club. 1910 Drayton dormitory. 1914 Glee club. 1915 George School baseball team members H. Lulsens, F. Stabler, C. Hayward, and J. Bentley. Jack Bentley ’15 signs with the Washington Senators after George School, one of three George School students to play in the big leagues.
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Early Years T H E GR E AT BEGI N N I NG TO T H E GR E AT WA R , 1893-1919
“ T he enthusiasm of George Maris was infectious. He spoke so persuasively that parents of prospective students became less hesitant to send their children to a new boarding school.” —History of George School 1893-1943
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U R I N G G E O R G E S C H O O L’ S formative years, the United States was a nation on the cusp, engaged in the inexorable transition from an agrarian to an industrial society, a traditional to a modern one. The school followed suit. On August 18, 1893, some 2,500 people, many arriving by train, attended a picnic to celebrate the school’s imminent opening. They were excited by Main Building’s modern features, including electric lighting, steam radiators, science labs, and wood- and metalworking shops. Construction continued after the celebration and Main was finally ready for the higherthan-expected enrollment of 155, when school started on November 6. Contrary to what one might assume, the campus was not built on the farm of the school’s benefactor, John M. George, who was persuaded to bequeath funds to endow a boarding school for Hicksite Quakers a few months before his death in 1887. (At the time, there was a schism between two Quaker factions, the Hicksites and the Orthodox, the latter represented at Westtown.) The George farm was actually in Overbrook, a developing Philadelphia “suburb,” and it was deemed more valuable to sell. Instead the site chosen for the new school was 227 acres in bucolic Newtown. Maintaining a working farm was part of the original plan—to “furnish clear and well kept territory for the pupils to roam over freely…furnish a supply of good and pure milk, and to some extent of eggs and poultry and of the various fruits and vegetables in their season.” The farm was a natural for the time, and many students came from farming families. They stayed through tenth grade—considered a sufficient education—before going home to farm.
The Newtown location was also selected for a more modern reason—the presence of a railroad and the incentives it offered: a campus train station and free haulage of construction materials. The train moved people and goods to and from Philadelphia, and a trolley line connecting to local towns would soon follow. Rooted in the nineteenth century, the George School curriculum comprised three programs of study: the Scientific, the Classical, and the Literary. Though 17 percent of early students were non-Friends, all were white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Catholics did not matriculate until 1902, and the first Jewish students were admitted during WWI. Coeducation was a fixture from the beginning, and though the genders were often kept separate outside of class, their education was largely equal. In the opening years, boys outnumbered girls 4:3, but by 1915, there were more girls. In 1906 Household Arts entered the curriculum as an alternate to manual training. Both sexes were welcome in both woodshop and kitchen. In 1908, the top teacher salary of $1,800 was paid to one man and one woman, a surprising statistic in a country that did not grant women the vote until 1920. An orchestra was formed in 1900, shortly after the George School Committee lifted its ban on musical instruments. Arts and athletics were given a boost by second headmaster Joseph Walton (1901–1912). The impact of WWI on the school was surprisingly modest, largely limited to food shortages, the closing of the swimming pool and assembly room in winter, and student work on local farms, replacing those who had left for war or factories.
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E A R LY Y E A R S
1896 A bicycle rally celebrates President William McKinley’s election victory.
1897 HORACE H. BURTON claimed to be the first student
WALKER BOND summarized seasonal recreational
to arrive on campus on the opening day of the school according to his son, John J. Burton ’58. “He said that Julia Balderston was the second. This is not reflected in the original signup sheet however, and I can imagine why. He had the gift of gab, and no doubt would have been chatting up others in the background rather than bellying up to the sign-in table. After his first two weeks, my father decided he had had enough of school and sent word to the family farm in Tullytown to bring up a horse and wagon to take him back home. The wagon duly arrived, he loaded his possessions, and was about to depart when he decided that it wouldn’t be polite to leave without saying goodbye to George Maris, the head of school. He went in to do so, and was promptly talked out of leaving on the spot. He unloaded his belongings and graduated four years later with the Class of 1897. You will find him in the Class of 1897 commencement photo in the second row, third from the left. He is also pictured in the above photo of the bicycle rally, celebrating McKinley’s 1896 victory. He is on the extreme right.”
activities in his diaries. In winter 1895, there was coed skating on the new, student-built skating pond, a mandolin concert at the railroad station (off school grounds), bingo, a class banquet with stereopticon slides, sleighing, snow shoveling for pay, snowballing that broke two windows, and readings and recitations by teachers. On Saturday nights students entertained each other with talks, songs, orations, and play readings. In spring 1897 there was a banquet for boys, featuring toasts, whistling, singing, and jokes. Also coed crokinole, two performing bears, a picnic for seniors, and a substantial breakdown in discipline as graduation approached.
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Editor’s Note: Memories shared in this section come from George School: The History of a Quaker Community by Kingdon W. Swayne ’37 and History of George School 1893-1943 by the George School Alumni Association.
1893-1919
1895 The gymnasium is designed to support the school’s mission of offering “that physical, mental, and ethical culture which we have seen producing such excellent results.” 1911 Boys’ lacrosse. 1896 Girls’ basketball team.
1899 Senior class at Wolf Rocks on Buckingham Mountain.
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E A R LY Y E A R S
1913 Basketry class. 1913 Eating fraternity. 1915 Chemistry class. 1905 Boys’ dorm room. 1918 Girls’ dorm room.
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1893-1919
1899 FREDERICK MORRELL One of few day students in the 1890s, Frederick remembered inviting classmates to his Langhorne home for parties that featured kissing games, ice cream and cake, and good dance records on the Victor Talking Machine. Classmate Grace Woodman (later faculty spouse Grace Woodman Brown) provided transportation with her horse and wagon.
N o ta b l e M i l e s t o n e s 1893 Original “offenses of the gravest character” are profane or vulgar language; gambling; entering stores selling alcohol or tobacco; possession of firearms, fireworks, or explosives; use
1913
of playing cards or other equipment for
EDITH WALTON STANNARD
games not approved; untruthfulness;
In her 1990 memoir, Edith recalled Sunday afternoon fussing walks along the Neshaminy, for which a group of students, usually four couples, would find a willing faculty chaperone. Of a party in the gym, she recounted, “There was no music or dancing—at this time dancing was forbidden at George School. Girls were given cards like dance programs and boys would sign their names for periods one to ten—a chance to talk to us for a few minutes until a bell rang. Chairs were placed in groups of two around the gym. Teachers carefully chaperoned the contacts—no holding hands or any signs of affection.”
deception; and cheating.
1919 LUCRETIA KESTER MAMMEL After swimming one day, Lucretia dried her hair but did not put it up before running from the gym to Main with her long locks flowing in the breeze. Matron Emily Atkinson, later associate head, stopped her and cautioned her to avoid such behavior, lest it arouse boys’ passions. Years later Lucretia told a friend, “I accepted Miss Atkinson’s advice out of respect for her, but I had no idea then what she was talking about!”
1895 The library collection includes 1,000 volumes of “Friends’ writings” and 658 volumes of “miscellaneous literature.” The school constructs a shed on campus for the carriages of day pupils.
1896 Based on strong enrollment, the George School Committee orders the construction of Orton, a small new dormitory, later expanded.
1905 Income from the George School farm ($4,244) exceeds the school’s gift income ($3,178).
1906 Retford is the first building devoted to classrooms, with math on the first floor and basement and chemistry, physics, and biology labs on the second floor.
1912 Head of School Joseph Walton dies suddenly from a duodenal ulcer and is succeeded by son George.
1913 A four-day break is given for Thanksgiving. Previously Thanksgiving was a regular school day with a big dinner that doubled for alumni reunions.
1919 The postwar flu epidemic causes two deaths, prompting another schedule change. During this decade, the school closed for outbreaks of diphtheria, tonsillitis, mumps, measles, German measles, and infantile paralysis.
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E A R LY Y E A R S
1916 Household arts class. 1915 Anne Russell’s language classroom. 1918 Belle Van Sant’s biology classroom. 1918 The cast of a student social.
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1893-1919
1906-1907 Boys’ basketball. 1904 Girls’ basketball. 1910 Boys’ Penn Relays team. 1908 Beekeeping association. 1915 Saturday after lunch.
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1922 Edmund Cocks’ biology class. 1920 Boys’ swimming and diving team at the school’s original pool.
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Roaring Twenties E C O N O M I C P R O S P E R I T Y A N D S O C I A L E N E R G Y, 1 9 2 0 -1 9 2 9
“ Train the body for health, the hand for work, the mind for thought and expression, and the spirit for religious devotion and service.”—Mission Statement, 1920
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HE OBJECTIVES OF GEORGE School families had not changed much in twenty-five years. Many still saw a few years of schooling rather than a diploma as the end goal. Though enrollment had grown steadily—from 155 on opening day in 1893 to 266 in 1920—the number graduating remained at around 10 percent. As the twentieth century progressed, however, a high school diploma became a middle-class expectation. Recognizing this, third Head of School George Walton instigated the school’s first significant revamp to the program with the 1926 adoption of a dual curriculum: one college-prep and a second “short curriculum.” The latter included courses in English, history, mathematics, home economics, drawing, and shop for students not going to college. The impact was dramatic. With only a modest increase in enrollment, the number of students graduating quadrupled, from twenty-four in 1923 to ninety-nine in 1929. In the nation at large, the twenties roared with economic prosperity and a new social, cultural, and artistic energy. Everything seemed possible thanks to the inventions of this early tech boom: the automobile, telephone, motion picture, radio, and electric appliances. While drinking was driven underground by Prohibition, jazz and dancing soared in popularity. There were plenty of signs that the twenties had arrived at George School. The rise of the car doomed the trolley, which ceased operation in 1922. Student life got livelier thanks to several new activities. Students lobbied for and were granted a debating class and a student newspaper, George School News, which replaced The Ides, a combination school newspaper and alumni bulletin. Football and social dancing also set an agile
foot on campus. In fact, a weekly dancing class was created in 1926, when George Walton realized the importance of dancing skills in post-graduation social circles. A typical Saturday night included dancing class from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m., followed by a movie shown on the school’s projector, purchased in 1920. Interscholastic sports got a boost not only with the addition of football, but also with conversion of a farm field into an athletic field in 1926. (It joined the original gym—now Marshall Center—and the swimming pool, added in 1911.) To justify the expense of the field’s construction, the George School Committee explained that athletic activity is “a vital factor in the development of moral character and the adaptation of personality to daily living. It teaches moral lessons of honesty, truthfulness, self-control, and temperance.” Competitive athletics for girls flourished among public and private schools. For three consecutive years, 1928, 1929, and 1930, the girls’ basketball team remained undefeated and the highest scoring team in Pennsylvania. Outstanding girls’ field hockey teams were frequent. With the exception of Bancroft, however, other significant campus improvements would wait until after the Great Depression.
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ROARING TWENTIES
1925 Girls’ debating society. 1920 Boys’ tennis team. 1925 Camera club. 1929 Boys’ soccer team.
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1920-1929
1920
1921
WILLIAM (BILL) H. SHOEMAKER
HEMAN CHASE
Bill remembers when boys, not girls, were allowed to meet the evening Newtown-Bristol trolley, which went past the door of Mrs. Goodnoe (of ice cream fame). They would prepay for snacks—which she would place on board—and then retrieve them from the trolley. Sometimes they attempted to deliver the treats to girls, who were not permitted to leave Main building (and which boys could not enter). Sometimes baskets were lowered from windows, with faculty members seeing or choosing not to see. Bill recalled one occasion when, after returning late and getting no response to his discreet signals, he threw a quart of ice cream through the window of Frances Brown Harkins ’21 and Dorothy Smith Aldrich ’20. Although he assumed the noise would get the girls’ attention, he was wrong. In his words, “Dot Smith woke up sometime during the night feeling a degree of moisture which she had not committed.”
In many letters home, Heman described George School and his life. He earned money in a host of ways—working on local farms on Saturdays for $2 and a good lunch, building items in the woodshop for other students, and taking orders for maple sugar, which his family sent. He was a member of Forum, an organization of boys selected by their peers for their leadership qualities. For the 1921 Forum banquet, up to then all-male, members were allowed to bring dates, an extra expense ($15 for two) that Heman thought “horrendous.” In the end, though, his date, Barbara Conrow Black ’21, like him a formidable debater, made the banquet “one of the greatest things I have ever done at George School, giving me even more satisfaction than winning the debate.” (The debate in question was a triangular competition with Blair and Perkiomen academies the previous week.)
GEORGE WALTON A group of boys took a large quantity of grease from the kitchen and applied it to the railroad tracks at the George School station. When the 5:30 train from Philadelphia arrived, it slid halfway to Newtown. Gathering the culprits to assign punishment, Head of School George Walton told them, “Before we begin I want you to know that I think that was the funniest and cleverest prank ever pulled at this school.” George did not favor strict discipline, believing that “a successful democracy is one in which the exercise of authority is minimized because its people understand what is needed for the general welfare and discipline themselves accordingly.” When one of the rail greasers pointed out that the demerits the head planned to impose would raise the student’s total to the number that triggered automatic expulsion, George reduced the penalty by one.
MILDRED MILLER STAPLER In letters to her future husband, Robert K. Stapler ’15, Mildred wrote of student attempts to leave campus instead of studying for exams. Since George Walton had banned day students from using their cars for such purposes, would-be hooky players were forced to take (often long) trolley rides. She also told of the “entertainment” provided after the traditional opening reception of 1918: group singing, four solo musical performances, and “the whole history of George School” from George himself.
1922 ELEANOR PETERS ARNESON Later a secretary at George School, Eleanor sent letters home that recounted campus happenings. These included the elaborate precautions taken by the junior class to pass out their new hats without being ambushed by the sophomores and free-for-alls between the girls of Third and Fourth West serious enough to require teachers to arrange a truce and reconciliation.
1924 PRUDENCE (PRU) WALLIS SUYDAM At a time when dances were finally permitted on campus but segregated by sex, Prudence overheard boys talking about crashing the girls’ dance, but it never happened.
1926 MALCOLM (MALLY) R. LONGSHORE With “do not touch” the rule of the day, Malcolm remembered a “fussing walk” along the railroad tracks during which his girl and he touched hands to keep their balance while on the rails. Chaperone George Walton’s rebuke: “We don’t do that here.”
Editor’s Note: Memories shared in this section come from George School: The History of a Quaker Community by Kingdon W. Swayne ’37.
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ROARING TWENTIES
1920 Drayton social room. 1926 Woodworking class. 1921 Retford biology classroom. 1925 Students have assigned seating for meals. 1928 Girls line up before physical education class. Hiking is the primary activity, with substantial mileage required over the school year.
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1920-1929
N o ta b l e M i l e s t o n e s 1920 The school launches its first campaign for endowment. Results disappoint, with only $158,417 pledged of the $500,000 goal. Girls are permitted to take part in interscholastic competition—two matches a year in hockey, basketball, and tennis. The first recorded action of the Girls’ Cooperative Council is to define the Girls’ Woods and to tell boys to stay out of them.
1921 Industrial Arts teacher Robert G. Brown builds his house on campus, in part to show his skills. In 1926, the school buys Brown House for use as a dorm. The canoe-building tradition begins.
1922 With the abolition of the Penn and Whittier Literary Societies, variety shows give way to staged dramas, which go from one per year pre-1922 to eight in 1924–1925.
1923 Football comes to George School.
1924 Alumni Weekend debuts. A new bathroom wing and fire tower block Drayton’s front doors, which faced Main Drive. The dorm will remain without a front entrance until the 1990s.
1928 Students on scholarship work on campus to save the school and themselves money. Twenty-nine students earn $2,500—an average of $86 apiece for the year.
1929 Quaker families unable to afford a tuition increase from $650 to $750 need only say so, and the extra $100 is forgiven. 1920 Sewing. 1921 Boys’ basketball, Norman Swayne coach. 1929 Boys’ cross country.
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1932 The tradition of canoe building begins in 1921. 1935 Household arts class.
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Turbulent Times T H E DE PR E S SION A N D WOR L D WA R I I, 1930-1945
“ To cultivate the art of thinking, all courses should make it necessary that students think and think hard. Forms of expression, such as writing, speeches, and drawing or music should be taught as vehicles of thought.” —George Walton
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OR A DE C A DE A N D A H A L F, the country and George School faced significant challenges, but the turbulence of the Depression and the second world war was balanced by consistent leadership. FDR, it seemed, was always at the helm. George Walton truly was. Head of school for thirty-six years (still the record), including this entire period, he helped the school adjust, persevere, and emerge stronger. Naturally, it was not easy to be a private school during the Great Depression. Belt-tightening became the order of the day. A comprehensive building plan created in 1931 proposed several projects slated to be finished by 1943. But as the Depression dragged on, only a power plant was constructed (1940). The rest would wait, some for decades. In 1934, the school cut salaries 10 percent (history and English teacher James Michener and wife Patti left for better pay two years later), while lowering tuition and increasing scholarship aid to maintain enrollment. It worked. In 1936, the school was full for the first time since 1927, its 357 students marking an all-time high. In 1942, the number rose to 410, another record. By the end of the war, the school was more popular than ever, with shockingly few students turning down an offer of admission. The 1930s also ushered in the age of the curriculum “sequence,” with different “divisions” for students with different interests and aims. (Division students took classes together with the same teachers from sophomore through senior years.) Division L, begun in 1932, gave Ivy League-bound students heavy doses of languages and math. Following its success, the pattern was expanded: a mathematics-natural science sequence
(Division M), two sequences focusing on contemporary society (Division S for the college-bound, Division C for others), a less-rigid, college-prep curriculum based on exploration (Division E), a successor to the short curriculum (the general curriculum), and a sequence stressing European roots and foreign relations (American Relations). The pendulum had swung away from a more egalitarian curricular approach, at least for the time being. While George School dealt with internal issues, it also wrestled with global ones. As war loomed, how would the school’s Quakers maintain a commitment to peacemaking without being unpatriotic? George Walton’s solution was to emphasize civilian public service and the common goal of advancing democracy. In 1939, a faculty committee created programs to “nourish the spirit and practice of democracy,” both on campus and through off-campus involvement with peace organizations and the working class. That same year George himself joined an American Friends Service Committee mission to Germany to distribute relief in Poland, then under occupation, and call attention to the “atrocities and restrictions endured by Jews in Germany.” In 1940 four German refugees joined the student body. Once the US joined the war, life on campus changed and remained surprisingly unchanged. A few male teachers performed “civilian defense work” by standing lookout for enemy aircraft. Other male employees, especially janitors and laundry workers, were drafted. Gas and food rationing and blackout curtains cast a shadow, but they did not keep students from dancing, dating, pursuing typical teenage activities, and developing into thoughtful adults.
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TURBULENT TIMES
1935 Camera club. 1937 Archery. 1935 Science class. 1933 Local history class. 1937 Team captains.
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1930-1945
1937 CAROLINE (CAROL) GAUNT HEADLEY “One of the people that stands out in my memory is George Walton, head of school. We called him Pope! He was a kind gentle soul, who knew and called each student by their full name. We looked forward to Saturday to go to Newtown for a black and white milkshake, also the sticky buns served in the dining room. We were not a diverse student body or faculty in those days. It is thrilling to see the changes today.”
N o ta b l e M i l e s t o n e s 1930 The George School Alumni Association forms, and the Georgian begins publication. The Schiller era of sticky buns begins. Baker August Schiller is joined by wife
1942
Berta in 1943. The only interruption in
CORNELIA (KINNIE) CLARKE SCHMIDT
sticky bun production happens in
“I loved my four years at George School and have many happy memories: varsity hockey with stops at the ‘waffle man’ restaurant for dinner after away games, early Sunday AM bike rides in the spring and fall with the Brintons, fixing breakfast over an outdoor fire, the excitement of the arrival our sophomore year of Rolf Wiegelmesser and Fritz Wiegelmesser ’41 from Nazi Germany, many new friends, teachers, and classes. As with all my classmates, I can remember where I was on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Suddenly future plans changed for many of us, although I know I did not really understand the full impact of that news. As my four years drew to a close, I could still hear Twingy from behind a shrub counting ‘right, left, right, left’ as we marched into the outdoor auditorium for graduation.”
wartime due to sugar rationing.
1947
By 1942, the total number of library
Editor’s Note: John’s memories are included here because many of them talked about his experiences during the war years.
JOHN D. ORR “In September 1943, we arrived as freshman. The 1942 losses of WWII were just beginning to turn around. In George Walton’s welcome address he stated: ‘To go to a school in the midst of the greatest war in all history is a unique opportunity, combining preparation for life’s most serious responsibilities with the normal pleasures of healthy, ambitious boys and girls.…Whether one’s preparation is applied in military or civilian service, or in public-spirited participation in community living, the emergency demands that no time be lost.’ In several respects, we were marked by what Americans have come to call the greatest generation. In our senior year, George School admitted seven veterans to classes and extra-curricular activities, but not to the boys’ dorms. Six of them were in our graduating class the following June. They continued for many years to return on Alumni Days to visit Miss Ernestine Robinson, who had become their great friend and advisor almost as soon as they arrived on campus.”
1932 Classes meet for ninety minutes, five times in two weeks, and class size goes from twenty to fifteen students.
1936 George School holds commencement in the William Penn Outdoor Auditorium for the first time. The farm’s thirty-three cows each produce an average of ten quarts of milk daily. The library moves from Main Building to the second floor of Bancroft. books exceeds 7,200.
1938 The George School barn burns down.
1940 The school abandons a single-textbook approach, urging students to compare treatments of the same subject for a “more natural and mature way of learning.”
1942 Students advocate for a cooperative work program to which all students, rather than only those on scholarship, contribute.
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TURBULENT TIMES
“Although not widely known at the time, Helen (Ronnie) Wolfe Dunn had direct contact with the events in Europe during the 1930s immediately preceding the breakout of WWII. She had been born in Austria and in 1932 her father sent her to her grandparents in their village, Moravia, Czechoslovakia, to start school. On March 12, 1939, Germany incorporated Austria into Germany. By November 1938 her father moved to New York, but Ronnie stayed behind with her grandparents and her schooling continued. On March 15, 1939, the Germans moved into her village—300 troops plus members of the Gestapo. She reported the immediate change in the village’s atmosphere, from one of peace and happiness to one of fear and dread. Streets were empty as people were afraid to leave their houses. Some would just disappear one day, leaving their apartment boarded up. One of her friends left because his father was sent to a concentration camp. Her father arranged for her to get a visa in Prague and she and her uncle traveled there and waited five days for hers to be issued. She then went back to Czechoslovakia, and waited for permission to leave. Teta, her grandfather’s German employee risked her neck by vouching for her friend Ronnie. Teta accompanied Ronnie by train to Bremen, to board the SS Bremen, bound for New York on August 4, 1939. Her voyage was better than expected, as she made friends on the ship and enjoyed its amenities on the trip. The ship arrived in New York on August 10, 1939, and Germany invaded Poland on September 1. Ronnie was one of eight freshman girls who lived in the new Westwood Dormitory in 1943. “Following the end of the war in Europe, Mr. Walton and history teacher Dr. Walter Mohr visited Germany to find schools that George School could affiliate with and help during a clearly difficult postwar period. They selected Gertraudenschule, a girls’ school in Düsseldorf and Jacobi-Gymnasium, a boys’ school near Berlin. Ronnie told me many years later that Mr. Walton invited her into his office in December or January of our senior year, told her about the schools, and asked her to be the chair of the GS Affiliation Committee. Her reply to him was that she was Jewish, and at that time did not know how many of her family had been lost in the Holocaust (later she determined that it had been 23 persons). She reported that Mr. Walton looked directly at her and said, ‘Ronnie, the healing has to start someplace, and I have selected you.’ She accepted the position.”
1935 Weaving. 1934 Metalworking. 1935 Building and repairing radios. In 1930 more than 40 percent of American households own a radio and listeners spend an average of more than four hours a day listening to broadcasts.
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1930-1945
1940 Saturday morning work detail (SMWD). 1932 Mary Louise Baker’s fine arts class. 1935 Elizabeth Huey’s English class. 1940 Language class. 1940 Printing class.
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1948 History class. 1947 An evening dance in the gym during social hour.
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Boom Times POST WA R GEORGE SCHOOL , 1946 –1959
“ Our school should be a place where lives are transformed, character is built, courage is strengthened, faith is deepened, ideals of person and social conduct are developed, [and] public spirited devotion to the common good is engendered.” – Richard McFeely
T
H E WO R L D WA S C H A N G I N G , and George School was changing right along with it—sometimes ahead of it and often grappling with the same issues. Though generally portrayed as a time of optimism and innocence, the Baby Boom years were both the calm and the squall before the storm, with the climate at George School measured by the same barometer. For much of the era, the school was led by Richard H. McFeely (1948-1966), a former faculty member with a voice as booming as the times and an energy unconstrained by his physical disability, the result of polio. “Mr. Dick” was the first teacher to ask to be called by his first name, a harbinger of the less formal George School to come. Because students could range in age anywhere from twelve to twenty at this time, the faculty was careful about how much freedom they allowed students outside of the classrooms. Often new freedoms for students were first senior privileges and then, after some time, permitted to other students. The Class of 1953 was permitted for their senior year by the Executive Council to use of the gym facilities and tennis courts with boys and girls segregated, Friday evening group movie dates in Newtown, Sunday morning breakfast cuts, daytime trips to Newtown, Saturday evening entertainment cuts, weekend guests of the opposite sex, and six full weekends off campus during the year. In 1959, while other schools embraced a sciencecentric “Sputnik curriculum,” George School recommitted to a well-rounded education stressing the intellectual, moral, and global. The following year, it added fostering “a growing awareness of the privileges and duties of national and world citizenship” to its goals and expanded history offerings to include more emphasis on Africa and Asia.
Many changes on campus—small and large—were responses to the outside world. With the rise of the automobile, safe driving classes were added to health instruction in 1947. When pasteurizing milk became required in the late 1940s, George School installed pasteurization equipment at the dairy farm (1948). In 1946, Cynthia Crooks Carpenter ’47, a Quaker from Jamaica, became the school’s first black student, followed three years later by Donald Dingle ’53, the son of a staff member. In 1948, the George School Committee approved a race-blind policy for faculty recruitment, and in 1950, Dick McFeely persuaded John and Jackie Streetz to come, as teacher and secretary, respectively. Many people—mostly students and young faculty, who had advocated to break the color barrier—welcomed them. By 1953, a year before Brown vs. Board of Education, Julian Bond ’57 enrolled, the first black student who was neither a Quaker nor a child of staff. According to John, key members of the community— Mr. Dick among them—“made a specific effort to make us feel comfortable, and in time we did.” Meanwhile, George School became somewhat more international in its make-up and distinctly more international in its outlook. Yinette Yangsan Yu ’47 was the first student from China, with more foreign students to come. In 1948, George School established brother/sister relationships with schools in Düsseldorf and Berlin, and a joint work camp with the former was held the following year. Other European work camps followed, providing participating students with a “great gain in arousing consciences, deepening concerns, and shaping their life work.”
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1946
1947
MICHAEL KULLA
THOMAS (TOM) D. BUSHMAN
“The headmaster then was George Walton who the students covertly called the Pope. I had authority issues and therefore Mr. Walton seemed excessively austere. “The six-inch rule was attributed to him, which applied to dancing couples who had to be a minimum of six inches apart. I do not recall that he actually carried a ruler around with him. A young woman asked me for Sadie Hawkins Day. When we were dancing she asked, ‘Doth thee play football?’ Since she seemed to be gesturing toward my roommate, Paul Anderson, I said he did. She repeated her question in frustration, and I finally got it that she was referring to me and that thee meant me, not he. “I remember going into the woods with classmates to peen (or was it pean?). It meant smoking cigarettes. Fussing was dating. I remember Tiny Hoyle, a big fellow, who introduced me to Moldy Fig jazz and Louie Armstrong, et al. “I remember two roommates at Drayton: P. Rodney Quigg Jr. and Edgar (Ed) T. Shaudys. All night, every night, Edgar opened the window and Rodney closed it. Sleep was not a given. We used to call Edgar ‘Edgar Shaudys, how do your carrots grow in the noon day sun?’ Edgar was a farmer. “I was captain of the tennis team, coached by Mr. Swayne. He lent me a two-inch pencil which he asked me for months later. I loved to pull his chain. After a tennis match I would look dejected especially after I won. He would ask me the score and I would say nothing. I savored it when he eventually reacted after finding out I had won. “Academically I was not a great student, but later I managed to get a PhD in psychology. I am still in practice.”
“Miss Pollock was my most memorable advisor at George School, perhaps because she insisted I continue in study hall. My good friends Tony Walton and others come to mind as well as several team friends. Mr. Shane was a special friend and influence.”
CARLOS LURIA “Years ago, when trying to impress young ladies, I would work the conversation around to our classmate, Stephen Sondheim, then modestly confess that it was I who had put him on the map. You see, it was I that did the lighting for the world premiere of his first musical comedy which garnered rave reviews. I neglected to mention that the comedy was the Class of 1946 production of By George! Or that the ‘rave review’ was limited to the Georgian. Or that Stephen’s mentor, the renowned Oscar Hammerstein, had pronounced it ‘the worst thing he had ever read. Not untalented, just bad.’ Or that the play had folded after just one performance. After all, when trying to impress a young lady, why clutter up the pitch with unnecessary detail?”
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CYNTHIA CROOKS CARPENTER “I have special memories of teachers Ernestine Robinson (English), William Cleveland (Religion), and Clark Moore (American History), and of playing hockey and piano. I appreciate Kingdon Swayne ’37 for including me in George School: The History of a Quaker Community.”
LOUISE (LOU) KIRK MANNION “After three years of trying, I finally made the varsity team in basketball. Back in those days, we weak females only played half a court. My parents had come a long way to finally see me play. In the second half, I dislocated my knee and ended up in the hospital in Abington. Fortunately, the cast came off just before the senior dinner dance.”
CLARKSON T. PALMER “My favorite memory of a classmate is of Elizabeth (Babs) Babbott Conant leaning back over the radiator at the back of the classroom and the radiator fan blowing her hair straight up.”
1949 CAROLE JOHNSON BROWN “The wonderful production of By George by James B. Hammerstein ’48 and Stephen Sondheim ’46. Early recognition of talent!”
JANE BOOTH ESTEP “My favorite person at George School was our headmaster, Richard McFeely. As a third floor dorm resident in his home at Sunnybanke, we would frequently talk about my missing the snow in my home state of Michigan. He knew that ‘snow’ really meant ‘my far-away family’ and he would always find a way to cheer me up.”
1950 SYLVIA SMITH HAMPTON “In drama club, during a Noël Coward production we prepared, some of us got the idea that we should arrange a telegram from the author congratulating ‘Uncle Jack’ Talbot on this production. The School Office went along with our fun. Our coach never let on he knew it was
1546-1959
1952 English class. 1953 Toboggan rides from Main. 1946 Pumpkin carving. 1950s Boys’ basketball. 1947 Girls’ tennis. 1952 Library in Bancroft.
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1953 Fine arts class. 1955 Table tennis is a favorite social hour occupation. 1957 Jazz Band. 1955 Physics class. 1958 School store.
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1946-1959
fake! As for a teacher who had great influence in my life, that is Robert Brown, Industrial Arts, 1917-1949, even though I never took his class. He married my cousin Grace Woodman Brown, GS graduate and lifetime friend of my grandmother Alice Woodman and her sister Elizabeth, both GS attendees. So, you see, the bond runs deep and wide. “A final memory, posing for ‘Walking Pictures’ so that groups could be photographed together. Six of us from the Class of 1950 joined for this fun in front of Main. We were Pat Emmett, Ruth Coates Wodock, Mary Hoagland Pittman, Fay Kirkbride Scudder, Barbara Dodd Anderson, and myself. Thanks, George School, for support and friendship.”
written (“Goodbye Bobbie”) to Seventeen Magazine. It was published with much appreciation by readers during my junior year.” Lucy believes that because of the valuing of meditation at George School, she is now “a person deeply rewarded by both my writing and the painful problems I have endured. Besides having published seven books and raised four children…I, as a psychotherapist who has benefited from [many years of] personal psychoanalysis, am able to use my earlier hospital experiences to my patients’ advantage.” Lucy founded both the Lucy Daniels Center for Early Childhood and the Lucy Daniels Foundation to assist writers and other creators through psychoanalysis.
1951
1952
LUCY C. DANIELS
MARY JANE MIKURIYA
“I’m writing this piece because, at eighty-four, I feel a strong need to share with others the valuable influence my George School experience has had on my rich but difficult life.” Excerpts from Lucy’s forthright memories focus on the George School experiences that Lucy believes helped her find a way to cope with a life of anxiety, anorexia, discouragements, and great accomplishments. Lucy was thirteen when she arrived at George School. Her parents sent their daughters to attend a co-ed boarding school to prevent them “from becoming old maids.” The Quakerism aspect of the schools ethos “was of little importance to them” in choosing George School for Lucy. But, as Lucy writes, “…the very qualities our parents overlooked became tremendously important to me. The twice-weekly … [meetings for worship]…in which we all meditated in silence unless ‘God inside you moves you to speak,’ helped me to learn about and grow with the experience of thoughtfulness. “Also, the emphasis on respect of others, even during disagreement, felt inspiring and life-changing. And daily co-operative work provided the experience of being dutiful and thinking about what I would most like to devote this dutifulness to. So, I moved from cleaning classrooms to being a library assistant. “Showing and receiving respect was a uniquely freeing and inspiring experience for me. In our family girls were worthless and the only way to have any value was to write like my father and grandfather who were both authors and editors. So, it was very meaningful to me that at George School my voice mattered. Besides earning good grades…I became a regular student body assembly speaker about news and world affairs. “And in my sophomore year my English teacher, Reese Frescoln, urged me to send a short story I had
“I believe it was 1950 when I took chemistry with a new GS teacher John Streetz. I enjoyed the challenge of chemistry and all those balancing of equations but I had to work hard. When I got to Brown University, I found chemistry so easy. I realized later that John had not realized that teaching high school chemistry was not the same as teaching college chemistry. “It should be noted, Ralph Bunche, the first African American honored with the 1950 Peace Prize, refused to be a commencement speaker because his children had been rejected as GS students. This rejection resulted in a demonstration in the dining room with signs and a brass band and requests to parents and trustees urging the school to change its policy to include African American students and teachers.”
CHRISTOPHER (KIT) WEIR “I was cleaning out files recently (you do that at our age) and came across this picture taken senior year from when we went into New York and had a great time.”
Left to right: Headley (Lee) S. White Jr., Mary Mann Clark, David W. Webb, Jeney Blanchard McCoy, Judith (Judy) Robbins King, and me.
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1953 JOYCE CUSHMORE BRADLEY “The teacher at George School who had the most impact on my life was Ernestine Robinson. She always encouraged me to do more than I expected I could do, and had great ideas about what I could tackle. I first had her for journalism, where she appointed me as girls’ sports editor, and I wrote a column for the George School News. I learned not only to include the Who, What, When, and How in my introductory sentence, but learned so many different words to describe winning including GS ‘smashed’ Westtown or ‘outswam’ the other team, etc. My junior year I was the GS exchange student to Germany, and I wrote a column for the paper and sent it back to George School. Mrs. R. named it ‘Berlin Embassy’ and I still have copies of the columns in my scrapbook. “In 1953, my senior year, she encouraged me to write a paper for a contest and gave me time off from English to go to the library and do my research. The topic of the paper was ‘Mendelian Inheritance’ and the George School library had three books on the subject in their card catalog, including a small pamphlet written by Gregor Mendel himself about his experiments with pea plants (in the original German). I wrote a ten-page paper, even using some of the German for footnotes. She told me to make it simple to understand, and per Mrs. Robinson’s suggestions, I was able to point out why the topic was important and significant. She proofread it for me, I typed it up, and sent it out. It won the contest. I received a full scholarship (tuition and room/board) to Bryn Mawr College. She invited me to her apartment on campus for dinner to celebrate together. The memory is still warm today sixty-five years later.”
STEPHANIE BUNZL COHEN “Julius B. Laramore was the most memorable character in my time at George School. Each year he had his Latin students memorize something from Latin literature. First year it was Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. I still remember Mica, Mica, Parva Stella! My roommates continued with Mr. Laramore second and third year, so I memorized Cicero’s oration against Cataline along with them. I do not remember what came from Virgo, though. After Christmas break our first year Mr. Laramore was ‘deeply hurt’ that no one in the class had sent him a Christmas card. I subsequently sent him cards for many occasions, even after I graduated. “Mr. Laramore appointed a class secretary to keep track of assignments. Since I was the one appointed, it led to my becoming our freshman class secretary. And, believe it or not, over sixty-five years later, I am now secretary of my Mt. Holyoke College class!
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There is a lot more I could say about Mr. Laramore, but suffice it to say that he was a character and most beloved. He was one of the first teachers we sought out upon returning to campus after graduating.”
GABRIEL (GABE) C. GARBER “As my 65th Reunion approaches, there are two people who have had a profound influence on my life. First was James (Jim) A. Tempest who was my first year math teacher. I was doing C work. He told me that if I continued he would give me an F in December because I could do better. I did not and he gave me an F. My parents and I were horrified, not at Jim but with me. It taught me a valuable lesson to always to do the best I can. I ended up setting up a scholarship in his name. The other was John Streetz who was my chemistry teacher. He became one of my closest friends who shared every life event for over sixty years.”
JUDITH WALKER NORRIS “I was one frightened young student for at least two years at George School and nothing was more frightening than speaking in class (unless it was being a day student floater in the dining room at lunch). When I began second year Latin it was apparent that daily translations of the Aeneid were sought by Julius Laramore from anyone of us in no particular order. So the hour was heart-pounding for me and I knew I had to gain some control over terror. That very kind man agreed to a deal: He would call on me only when I looked directly into his eyes. Am I correct in remembering that they twinkled? That happily-resolved situation led to yet another year of Latin and then a fourth when our classroom held only four students. It is from him that I learned to love learning. And, if I had been smarter, I could have taken in how easy it is to be kind.”
JOHN C. RAUSHENBUSH “During my junior year I was lucky enough to have gotten to know English teacher and dorm head Hugh M. Cronister ’44 well. We were both avid tennis players making the easy transition to ping pong when the weather declined. In the fall and again come spring, we would head to the courts by 6:00 a.m. and get in an hour of tennis before breakfast. Back then, if memory serves, there was a ping pong table on the first or second floor of Main. There, during free time, we would play our own brand of the game, not keeping score but easing farther and farther back from the table in an effort to make shots longer and harder, and points longer lasting. Evenings were often spent assessing the fine points of each of those games we played sixty-six years ago, as well
1946-1959
1959 Senior trip to Washington DC. 1952 Letters from home. 1956 Hemming a dress. 1958 Service work in Philadelphia. 1958 Making plans after class. 1955 Celebrating Alumni Weekend and Alumni Gym built in 1951.
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as books we had enjoyed and people who were special to us. Is it any wonder that I became a boarding school English teacher and dorm master, and that I played tennis until a few years ago? Many thanks, Hugh!”
GUDRUN SCHULZ WEEKS “At 83 I still get excited about lacrosse and our great coach Eleanor (Pete) K. Hess—her name is still on the tip of my tongue. I remember the excitement of running down the field and passing the ball from basket to basket and having the audience cheering with us! The wonderful exhaustion after playing in contrast to the boring times standing around ‘fussing’ with boyfriends. Lord what a vacuum seemed to be in our heads, nothing to talk about. “There were many fine teachers at George School. I was in awe of our algebra teacher. He could do cartwheels and he could fascinate one with his talk. Dr. Walter Mohr also was a great history teacher. He opened up worlds and inspired thinking. Mlle. Dedinski, in French, was a thorough and tough teacher. How I liked working for her for four years! “Sophomore year I roomed with Gudrun S. Adam ’52 (Gudy I and Gudy II) on Frau Blaschke’s hall. Cheerleading was a diversion, quite fun. I preferred cheering for the soccer team. I was head of the workcamp committee, but was tortured by having to speak about it in assembly. I would have preferred to play a violin solo any day. And I did play with Julie Leedham one assembly. “I have warm memories of KOBs, little folded up notes carried around to lovers. I still have one of those from John Raushenbush!”
1954 ROBERT (BOB) A. FREEDMAN “During the time I was at George School—fall of 1950 to spring of 1954—I think the most memorable faculty member for a large part of our class might be Julius B. Laramore. He was one of two Latin teachers and the dorm master of Orton Dormitory. He made us memorize the Latin motto of his college, the University of Chicago, which (along with the poetic English translation) was worth five points on any exam! The motto was ‘crescat scientia, vita excolatur,’ and the official translation ‘Let knowledge grow from more to more, and so be human life enriched.’ At the time, it merely seemed like a silly way to get points on an exam, but little more. If you think of it today, what a wonderful summary of the job of all colleges and universities. Isaac Asimov, the great and hugely prolific science fiction writer (and, to his death in 1992, still a
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professor of biochemistry at Boston University) often expressed the same thought when he gave lectures, but less grandly: ‘The function of a bird is to fly; the function of a fish is to swim; the function of a human being is to learn.’ I do not disagree, but I prefer Mr. Laramore’s teaching choice. It somehow imbedded in my mind the importance of learning to being human.”
PETER (PETE) D. GLUSKER “I remember a very memorable Sunday morning, when math teacher James (Jim) A. Tempest had a small group of us to breakfast at his home on campus. After waffles, we held Sunday meeting outside under a tree in the yard. The meeting was interrupted by a cow in the pasture giving birth. The birth process took the rest of the meeting, which we watched in silence. The meeting time was up at the same time the calf stood up and was licked clean by the mother cow. Very memorable meeting.”
E. DAVID LURIA “When I entered George School in 1950, I was asked by then Athletic Director Stanley B. Sutton: ‘Luria? Luria? Are you any relation to a CARLOS Luria who was here eight years ago?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied hesitantly, ‘He is my brother.’ ‘Really? Well, do not let me catch you doing any of the things HE did while he was here! He was ALWAYS on RPL (Restricted Privilege List).’ ‘Oh, no, sir,’ I replied, ‘I would NEVER do anything like that!’ But then in my illustrious career at George School I in fact DID many of those same things, such as wiring up our rooms for all-night lights, installing telephone communication systems between rooms, and conducting a lucrative after-hours bicycle repair and manufacture business in Orton with my roommate. Sure enough, I quickly learned that crime does NOT pay. Dick McFeely, our head of school, spied after-hours lights peeking through the blanket hung over our window in Orton, reported this fact to Orton’s resident teacher Mr. Laramore. Just like my brother, I too ended up on the RPL. Later in life my brother and I atoned for our sins. He went on to spend twenty-seven years in the intelligence service and I went to work for CARE—both of us mitigating our guilt by trying to make the world a better place!”
WILHELM STREIT Coming to George School in early August from the Jacobi-Gymnasium in Dusselsdorf, Germany for the upcoming 1952-1953 school year was, as Wilhelm Streit describes it, “an overwhelming experience.” He writes that, “I was truly captivated by the wonderful campus and the unique hospitality of the
1946-1959
George School family of teachers and staff members. I was taken in by Vice Principal Mr. William Eves who lived close to the George School campus. He and his lovely wife introduced me to the American way of life and now, more than sixty years later, I am still very grateful to the Eves family for their hospitality and very special kindness. “A very special person in my life at George School was Mr. Bradshaw Snipes ’41, a young and much respected teacher whom I was allowed to visit with his family in Morrisville NJ several times. I have very fond memories of him and his thoughtful wife Inge Snipes. Also very dear to me was Ms. Edith Passmore who served as the head librarian at George School. She took me under her wings and I learned so much from her about literature and all aspects of life in America. “A very special role model and fatherly mentor for me was Principal Richard McFeely whom we called, with much admiration, Mr. Dick. He was known as an excellent football player and athlete in his youth until being hit by a severe polio infection. Although paralyzed and bound to a life in a wheelchair, Mr. Dick was always energetic and displayed such a cheerful and optimistic mood. Coming from Germany and having experienced a very rigid and authoritarian education system, I was most impressed by the friendly and respectful relationship between students and teachers at George School. “In looking back, I realize that raising social awareness for the needs of the less privileged members of society was important to all teachers and a crucial aspect of the George School curriculum. My teachers encouraged me to attend a work camp organized by George School, which provided me with the hands-on experience of helping to renovate a run-down apartment inhabited by a poor family in inner-city Philadelphia. “George School was a very inspirational place. I will not forget the lecture given by the renowned and Nobel Prize winning author Pearl S. Buck or the preview of the Academy Award winning movie Gone with the Wind which was provided by the famous producer David O. Selznik, whose son Dan (Class of 1953) attended George School. I also enjoyed the musical performance of the George School orchestra and mixed chorus. Furthermore, I was impressed by the productions of the dramatic class. “I was very much captivated by the Quaker traditions that guided life at George School. It took time for me as a Lutheran Christian to fully appreciate the silent meetings. However, I left with a deep appreciation for the spirit of brotherly love so actively displayed by the members of the Friends community.”
1955 SUZANNAH GLIDDEN “I gleefully remember Portia Cornell’s and my escapade riding the dining room dumb waiter down to the bakery to eat some cherry pie. Then getting caught by the night watchman, which put us on demerit. We almost did not graduate because of it!”
SUZANNE (SUE) PARRY LAMBORN “The best part of George School for me was to be accepted for who I was. One of my fondest memories was talking with Julian Bond ’57. He and I had come from two different poor public schools and had to work hard to catch up to the students who had superior preparation for the school. I am so proud of his successful life and that he and I were friends. I value the work camp experience in Philadelphia and our empathy for those in Germany who were still recovering from World War II.”
SANDRA (SANDY) STEES SUDOFSKY “I remember Ann Compter Burrows who died several years ago. Besides being pretty and vivacious, Ann could open a textbook the night before an exam and ace it! However, by George School’s 10:00 p.m. curfew, she had not quite finished. Luckily, the outdoor light was sufficient and Ann got an A, in spite of the rain.”
MARY SMITH WADDINGTON “Although many of my relatives were George School alumni, as a new student I was a timid and awkward innocent straight out of a rural one-room schoolhouse. I was oblivious to the wonders and complexities of the world. Well, I found them at George School—abruptly and overwhelmingly. I observed upper classmates, poised and eloquent, excelling in all manner of endeavors. I clung desperately to my big sister. Somehow I managed to climb a steep learning curve and acquire beautiful lasting friendships. However, each September I was poignantly aware of and sensitive to the new students, remembering what it had been like as a stumbling newbie in a sea of confidently striding achievers. “And so it happened that Linda Bullard Lipnik and I found ourselves as prefects on Fourth East, housed in a room quite large enough for a rocking chair and any number of freshman girls seeking answers, reassurances, or just needing to share. Linda and I spent Saturday mornings with them sprawled in the hall playing jacks while a radio played top hits. It was there that we bonded, and homesickness became a thing of the past. “My vocation and advocations have been a carryover from that senior year at George School where I nurtured and was nurtured in life-changing ways.”
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1956 PATRICIA DANIELLS CARTER “I enjoyed going to assembly before trotting off to class and still sing those songs ‘Take me somewhere east of Suez.’ My sophomore year (1954) Dr. Walter Mohr told us about the Supreme Court decision in Brown v Board of Education. I cannot remember what he said but remember how significant he thought it was. So I majored in government history in college and went to law school. Also thanks to Ms. Ernestine Robinson and working on the George School News I learned to write pithy legal briefs (or so I think). I read in the Georgian that classmate Mario Capecchi talked to students about a film being made about him and I wish he could share that with us. I did not really know him at George School because he was a day student and in all the brainy classes but one day I opened my Washington Post and there he was beaming at me. I read about his survival during the War; wish I had known more then.”
ELIZABETH (BETSY) DAY DARLINGTON “The most meaningful (and memorable) activities of my three years at George School were weekend work camps in Philadelphia. I also had the good fortune to host a Vietnamese Herald Tribune exchange student. “Phuong and I kept in touch for many years thereafter, but lost touch during the Vietnam War. Some years after the war ended, I got a phone call from her, from California! She and her children (her husband had been executed by the Viet Cong) had fled during the chaotic end of the war and made it to the US, but she had left without her address book and had no idea how to reach me. She heard something on the radio that reminded her of where we lived. She called information, and finally was able to get in touch with me. She and one of her sons came to visit us in Ithaca, NY, a wonderful reunion. “I had always hated—and been terrible at—math, until I went to George School, but discovered that I actually enjoyed it (and was good at it), with a good teacher, Mr. Evans. “What was the best thing that I got from my time at George School? My husband, Richard (Dick) B. Darlington ’55, one year ahead of me at GS. We sat next to each other in the orchestra. We have been happily married since 1959.”
forget that weird ‘in joke’ of someone holding an invisible object up and asking ‘Is The Yours?’ It was a lively bunch. And a certain barber-shop quartet (or trio) singing a capella at the drop of a pin: ‘Y’all wonder where the yellow went...etc.’ Anyone else remember that?”
1958 JOHN J. BURTON “I was a day student for all but my senior year, commuting from home in Edgely in Bristol Township, with a carpool of adult men who worked at Lavelle Aircraft Corporation in Newtown. To meet them for a ride home in the afternoon I had to be at the corner of Route 413 and end of Eyre Line by 4:37 p.m. The alternative was an hour’s ride on the 5:08 p.m. bus to Bristol, and then I was still several miles from home at the end of the line. “Basketball was my winter sport and I would leave five minutes early to catch my quick ride home. My early departure was noted, as was my lack of prowess in sports generally, due to being one of the youngest members of the class. Before long, Athletic Director Stanley B. Sutton called me into his office, and in his lowest tone of voice said, ‘Sonny, with your weight and agility, I think you should be in wrestling.’ I did not protest, as I knew I had it coming, but it was a steep price to pay to get home ninety minutes earlier. “After that, I managed sports teams as often as allowed—I painted the lines on the tennis courts instead of playing tennis, etc. The only ‘sport’ I got fairly good at was ping pong, as there was a table in the boys’ day student room in the basement in Bancroft. I still play to this day. “I had Miss Dedinsky for French for four years. I am forever grateful to her, because when I entered Earlham College as a freshman I tested into third year college French. This course then satisfied my language requirement forever. The teacher I knew the best was Palmer Sharpless. In addition to being our class sponsor, he was my freshman mechanical drawing teacher, my sophomore print shop teacher, my junior wood shop teacher, and my senior year co-op assignment supervisor. That print shop course led to a job for two summers at the Old Delaware Printery in Bristol. I remained friends with Palmer and his wife Joan over the decades. On one visit he asked me if I would like to buy his canoe, the only one he had ever made himself even though he supervised many students who made their own.”
SUSAN TRICKLE HOLLAND “The Messiah performed by the chorus, the orchestra, and soloists at Christmas time 1955—the season of sticky buns and candles! Wonderful memories. I also think no one who was in the Class of 1956 will ever
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Editor’s Note: John has graciously donated Palmer’s handmade canoe to the Embrace the World dinner, dance, and auction, celebrating 125 years of education, service, and community on Saturday, October 20, 2018.
1946-1959
1959 ROBERT (BOB) B. DOCKHORN “In religion class at George School in 1959, teacher Bill Cleveland assigned the task of writing a letter to ourselves five years in the future. He would hold onto the letters and then mail them to us in 1964. We were asked to write on the outside of the envelope what our parents should do with the letter if we had died, and I wrote down the name of my current flame. Sure enough, the letter was mailed back to me five years later. By then this girl and I had pretty much forgotten about each other, and to my embarrassment my parents, who received the envelope at our home, were highly amused by my instructions on the outside. “In that letter I expressed the hope that in five years we would have better insights into ‘the relation between the physical world and the moral guiding force.’ I also made predictions about the world: in 1964 Africa would have ‘zoomed in importance;’ in space, humans would be on the moon ‘and possibly, to Venus and Mars.’ I never had occasion to write a letter like that again, but over the decades I have often fantasized about being transported back to 1959 to explain advances in science, technology, and social patterns to my then classmates. What would be especially important to tell them, and what would they have the hardest time grasping?”
N o ta b l e M i l e s t o n e s 1946 By George, an original musical written by Miriam Dubin Holsen ’46, Stephen Sondheim ’46, and James (Jim) Lincoln ’47, debuts.
1947 Dress code guidelines first appear in the student handbook. There are six categories: daily, social/Sunday, evening (girls), outdoor, work, and athletic.
1948 80 percent of seniors are admitted to their first-choice college.
1949 Day student enrollment passes one hundred students for the first time and continues to climb.
1951 Hundreds of donors contribute to build the Alumni Gym for boys’ sports.
HENRY (BOB) R. HIDELL III
1952
“My years at George School remain amongst my most cherished. GS was a unique place in that its Quaker educational foundations guided its principles on how to educate students composed of a wide range of interests, intellect, and backgrounds.…The Class of 1959 reflected the times—and they were changing. We were caught between the tradition of long past social conventions and America after WWII. During our time at George School, America emerged into a time of stress between old convention and mores and the new freedoms that come with a rewarding economy and new opportunities to test new social mores and rejection of past social convention. Great time! “It was not our parents we had to break away from, it was ourselves. It took generations to enter the future. We have and we brought with us life changing technology and ways to communicate that have impacted a global society— bringing the world closer. I will not identify special teachers who were critical to my understanding of self and have remained close to me in mind and spirit except in one case. I miss John Streetz deeply. We taught together when he was headmaster at Oakwood School. Then I went to Boston and he went to Oakland, CA. I was with him when he died. The profound sadness I felt is the burden of a commitment of endearment to each other. Thank you all. What a great life you started me on.”
George School organizes a tri-national (American, German, and French) work camp with Germantown Friends School.
1953 Because local unskilled workers make more than George School teachers, fundraising to increase faculty salaries begins.
1954 “Hymn to George School,” composed by music teacher Robert W. Steele, appears in the student handbook.
1959 During the Cold War, Russian is added to German, French, and Latin. It is later dropped, returns in 1986, and is discontinued again in 1994, after the Soviet Union dissolves.
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1962 Saturday Morning Work Detail, also known as SMWD. 1967 Orton Weekend dance.
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Changing Times THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES
“ I n the best Quaker tradition the school community—faculty and students—searched together for the truth. Compromises were made, consensus reached, changes undertaken. Some felt that the school had changed too much, others that it had not changed enough.” —Kay Edstene, Assistant Head
T
H O U G H T H E I S S U E S O F T H E DAY generally make their way onto the George School stage, the largely youth-led and youthfed movements of this turbulent time—civil rights, women’s rights, the Vietnam War, the environment, sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll—played a bigger role than usual. As college campuses seethed, it was only natural that George School students, and young faculty, would join in challenging the policies and authority of the establishment. Through Quaker process and lots of discussion, change did come. As the 1960s dawned, Julian Bond ’57 was already working for civil rights in the South. In Newtown, George School was still largely white and slumbering. When Kathleen Neal Cleaver ’63 spoke passionately at assembly about the Albany Movement, which began during the fall of 1961, she was surprised by the negative reaction, having assumed that a Quaker school would support nonviolent protest. Change happened slowly. In 1963, George School became a founding member of a consortium later known as A Better Chance, and by 1965 committed to fully supporting one student of color per grade. The community talked about civil rights in and out of class, but minority enrollment continued to lag. Though gender equality in enrollment was not a problem, women’s rights on a broader scale became a topic of discussion. In 1972, the year of Title IX, almost every student was involved in competitive athletics, prompting six girls’ hockey teams. But the most pressing campus issue, at least until it ended in 1975, was the Vietnam War—not surprising considering that each year’s crop of senior men faced the
dreaded draft lottery. The school joined in the national Moratorium Day in October 1969, and when National Guardsmen killed four students during an anti-war protest at Kent State in May 1970, most boarders left their rooms and gathered on South Lawn in what came to be called the Great Sleep-Out. According to Kingdon Swayne ’37, “The faculty responded as it had before and would again, with a patient willingness to talk about whatever was on the students’ minds… Plans were laid for informational evening seminars on national issues, and tentative guidelines drawn for students wishing to join demonstrations in Washington or elsewhere.” Challenges to authority and the status quo were not confined to societal issues. Campus topics like dress code, student governance, and curriculum were debated and updated, a long process managed by Head of School Eric Curtis (1967–1979) and the faculty, who themselves were often divided, usually along age lines. Of course, not everything that happened in these years was controversial. Healthy finances and fundraising brought about long-delayed capital projects, including the construction of Walton Center (and a flowering of the performing arts), McFeely Library, SpruanceAlden Science Center, and Worth Sports Center and Marshall-Platt Swimming Pool; the re-purposing of areas vacated as a result; and the rebuilding on campus of George School’s very own meetinghouse. By the end of 1979, Eric Curtis and the old pullcord telephone switchboard were retired, a new head (David Bourns) had arrived, and the times would continue to change.
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1961
1963
PETER D. CROWN
SARAH BILTZ CLARK
“Day students had the advantage of driving cars, staying out late on weekends, and having little oversight of making out, which could be enjoyed without hiding in the woods, all important facets of teen life. The disadvantage, and it was a large one, was missing out on dorm life and its camaraderie, and the proximity of study partners. Nevertheless, in the department of day student mischief, there was the Halloween night when a few classmates and I interrupted local automobile traffic patterns. We placed police barricades across Route 413 so that traffic was directed into campus. What a sight! All those cars streaming into the main drive. We thought it was hysterical. Well, at least we were hysterical!”
“Grant Fraser taught math. He carried a large, oldfashioned briefcase with metal runners on the bottom. Before each class he would stand unseen—right outside the door—and launch the briefcase across the front of the room. The briefcase would zing on the hardwood floor all the way to the opposite wall, bounce off, and land. He would then enter and the class would begin. “Miss Hoyle and Julius B. Laramore both taught Latin. Miss Hoyle lived on the south end of campus over near Newtown Friends School. It was said that she never missed a class. Once there was a very heavy snow and we were certain that she would not make it, but she hitched a ride on the snow plow! “Mr. Laramore was old and playful. He taught us to sing, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in Latin. I can still do it, but my real favorite was, Hickory, Dickory, Dock. I can see his long face and hear his deep voice reciting… Dikura, Dikura dogium, Ascendit mus Horologium!!....” “Richard McFeely had the most impact on me. ‘Be Thou My Vision’ was his favorite hymn. It is a favorite of mine as well, reminds me where to look for wisdom, light, and real treasure. “‘How Deep May I Drink?’ was a story he shared at assembly. A little boy from a poor home was ill and hospitalized. In the morning a nurse brought breakfast to his room. Seeing the glass of milk on the tray, he asked, ‘How deep may I drink?’ At his home the children shared one glass of milk, each drinking in turn to a specified level. Every day, in some way, I ask myself ‘How deep may I drink? How much of ‘my’ resources are really ‘mine’?’ “Every morning after breakfast from my second floor dorm room in Main, I would come to the window and watch for the headmaster. Soon he would appear from the left in his green golf cart, sturdy wooden crutches perched in the back, his legs in iron braces. He would: reach down, lift the right leg out of the cart… turn slightly to the right…lift the left leg out of the cart, turn to face the building (and the hidden girl)…sweep right arm back, grab both crutches…swing them around in front of him…plant the crutches and lift the body upright…lock braces in place at the knees…straighten his suit…advance both crutches, and swing the body through…repeat, up the ramp, out of sight, and into the building. “Two things I learned from watching him. First, ‘Do whatever you need to do to get where you want to go.’ Early thought processes that formed in my brain created a mental condition similar to his physical paralysis, and I have learned to use new methods of
KAREN JOHNSON “I remember the time Anne Cook Torry and I painted our room and got into big trouble!”
CATHARINE (CATHY) BOTHWELL RACHLIN “I remember Mr. Jones, my history teacher. I particularly appreciated his humor (very dry, as I recall) and his politics (very left). Does anyone know where he is now? It would be fun to hear from him.”
JAMES (JIM) M. TALBOT “Ken Keskinen was one of our favorite people—English teacher, tennis coach, mentor to many. He had a great sense of humor always, used the maddening but effective Socratic teaching method of answering a question with a question, and was a true gentleman. We always invited him back to our reunions, along with our class sponsor John Streetz. “I spent four years sandwiched between John Syrett and Mary Jay Taylor Michel every morning. John, 5’7” and 140 pounds dripping wet, was the QB, point guard, and a wily lefty on the mound. He was the class’s best athlete and the street-smart kid from New York City. Mary Jay, was (and still is hopefully) the lovely lady from Lynchburg, VA. Good memories.”
1962 SARA (SALLY) WISLAR FARNETH “Thanks to Dorothy (Dottie) W. Detwiler, I still understand and can use some of the math that I learned in her classes. While I admit Latin was not a favorite class, Miss Hoyle made it possible for me to decode unfamiliar words that appear in print.”
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1960-1979
1960 Hallowell. 1965 Library reading lounge. 1965 Student performance in the Walton Green Room. 1971 The Spruance and Alden families with Head of School Eric Curtis at the dedication of their Science Center. 1976 Construction begins on the Worth Sports Center and the Marshall-Platt Swimming Pool.
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1967 Students gather on East Main Porch. 1975 Kenneth Keskinen, history class. 1972 Michael Sherrin, music class. 1970s Cheerleading. 1975 Members of the Discipline Committee.
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1960-1979
thought to get the good life I want. Most people skip up the steps of Main. Many people just make decisions well and quickly. But some of us need methods of thought or body, ‘lift the right leg…turn slightly to the right….’ The important thing is, ‘Do whatever you need to do to get where you want to go.’ The second thing I learned, ‘Know that you are being watched.’ I doubt that Mr. Dick had any awareness of me. I was one out of the crowd and he was running a school, but he ‘spoke’ to me none the less. “I work in schools now, and I am very careful about what I do and say. As I sing songs, tell stories, walk down the hallways, I sometimes wonder, is there a child watching, a child I will never know? And I say, ‘Here, dear unseen, unknown child, let me give you a gift, the sort of gift that my friend Mr. Dick once gave me.’”
1964 KATHRYN MCCREARY “So many of my teachers at George School were inspiring and led me to pursue studies that are still of great importance to me. One who helped me in my struggles with self-doubt and fear of failure was Marty McKee. As an acting coach for those of us who had the privilege of performing in Hamlet, she connected with me personally and saw how paralyzed I was by my feelings. She guided me to see acting as a door to self-expression, a way to communicate thoughts and feelings that are universal, and ultimately a way to lessen our isolation and loneliness. I think of her often, and wonder if she had any idea what a difference her understanding made for me.”
hands from 6:30 to 7:10 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after dinner unless there was an organized activity. On Saturday night, we could dance sixinches apart and the Twist was forbidden. So we did the Continental Stomp as loud as we could until they were afraid we would damage the building. Just memories! Breaking the rules and getting caught meant you got RSP and your name was publicly displayed. UGH.”
MORGAN (SCOTT) PHENIX “I do not think I understood in 1964 the special privilege and opportunity of attending George School, my home for four years. The gift of that experience was mostly about the people: for me, Julius B. Laramore’s wit and civic imperative, and somehow he allowed me back as Orton prefect my senior year. And Stanley B. Sutton contributed a true life’s turning point which of course escaped me at the time, recognizing a perilously skinny six-foot freshman as a possible athlete in a sport I had never heard of. Imagine, running free down Eyre Line, through the woods, around the pond and out past the farm. The richest memories. The people we lived with. Smooth and solid senior roommate David J. Erskine; day-student speeding wheels escapes with David W. Hollister. And, as Kathryn McCreary has reminded me since, the many friends and secrets we could have known at the time. If only. The people. But there is also the special gift of George School’s faithful and quiet backdrop. Our rare inheritance of deliberative justice, creativity, and peace. And kindness. I send a lifetime of thanks.”
1966
JUDITH (JUDY) MCILVAIN LEWIS
RICHARD (DICK) L. DANLEY
“I often think of my wonderful French teacher, Mary Rhodes, who taught me more about learning and the confidence achieved by small successes as she cheered us on daily. Unafraid of climbing into a trashcan or onto a desk to teach prepositions, I also learned how to be enthusiastic in my own teaching career. So, I salute Miss Rhodes heartily! “I also remember an event from 1963. Our junior class had a dance in Drayton basement that was well chaperoned. By mid-dance, about half the class had disappeared and the chaperones were worried as we were not allowed to leave the room. They found us in the broom closet, playing spin the bottle, and (heaven forbid) kissing. We were banished and forever known as the Broom Closet Class. “Restricted Social Privileges (RSP) in the 1960s. I remember the rules. No kissing. No arms over shoulders at Saturday night movies. We could hold
“I remember the completion of Walton Center in January 1965; but the inability to use the building for several months until the front doors arrived. Each Monday morning at breakfast Dean Turner would include in her announcements ‘The doors for Walton Center still have not arrived,’ with the rest of her message being drowned out by the groans of everyone else.”
A. LOUISA BECK HATANAKA “Remember the blue books we used to write our answers to exams in the 60s? I filled one with an analysis of an anonymous author’s poem, arguing that it was much better than the other choice, a poem by E.E. Cummings. Only afterwards did our English teacher David Miller mischievously let us know that he was the mystery poet. (I am pretty sure that my analysis was correct.) Remember the perfectly rectangular patch of white hair in the middle of Grant Fraser’s gray buzz cut? The one
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that looked like someone had bopped him with a blackboard eraser? Remember the day that, with a cushion wedged in his right armpit because he could not raise his sore arm, he triumphantly filled two blackboards with a proof, only to be met with ‘Mr. Fraser, I followed you every step of the way, but I could never do this proof myself.’ There was a long silence, then he said, ‘But, you do not have to create a beautiful sunset to appreciate it!’”
SUZANNE V. SAUTER “It has now been something over forty years that I have been a licensed lay reader in the Episcopal church. At first there was no amplification in the old church. Often when I go to read or conduct Evening Prayer, I am reminded of the exercise that Mr. Cleveland conducted on the stage at Walton. One stood alone to recite the speech of Hamlet to the players (Act 3 Scene II) that begins, ‘Speak the speech I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines...’ I really disliked the exercise since I was not able to fit the action to the word. But I did learn to listen carefully to the words. Clearly this exercise has served me well for many years.”
CHARLES (CHUCK) F. WILLSON “Will always remember our class play Life with Father. Will always remember how our chemistry teacher, John Streetz, would roll his eyes when my answer was off mark. Will always remember beating Bryn Athyn in football our junior year. Will always remember so many happy and brilliant classmates. Will always remember George School, the right school at the right time for me.”
1967 FAITH MASON “One strong series of memories involves chemistry with John Streetz. He nicknamed each of his classes and I think we were the rinky-dinks. John had a way of teaching with both rigor and affection, which engendered our high regard for him. “I remember with mixed emotions taking Grant Fraser’s take-home math exams. Take-home did not mean easy, and those were clearly the most difficult exams I ever took, including the ones in college. These exams pushed farther than we had gone in class, often asking us to prove theorems we had not seen before. It was after one of these exam marathons that my eyes were so tired that I realized I needed glasses. “I loved Connie Sigler’s English class. She used Wind, Sand, and Stars by Antoine de St. Exupery, one of my all-time favorites, and one that lifted me up at the
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time. Her smile was enthusiastic and there was always some new inspirational quote posted on her wall. I have loved finding great quotes ever since, and implemented posting them in my own classroom when I taught developmental psychology in our local community college. “There was a day in the winter of 1967 when we had had a heavy snow fall, and most of the day students did not come to school. A few boarding students complained that they never got a snow day, and to everyone’s surprise, Jim Tempest, then interim headmaster, announced at lunch that classes were optional that afternoon. I think many teachers were disgruntled, but most students found ways to play outside in the snow. After some play, I still went to orchestra rehearsal because I loved Michael Sherrin’s orchestra and his enthusiasm. At the time we were beginning to work on Bizet’s Carmen Suite for the spring performance. “There were many other teachers and other role models on campus whom I loved and admired for their example: my father, of course, Bert Mason, director of admissions and then curriculum coordinator, Mr. Dick, Elizabeth Neureiter Seely, Palmer Sharpless, Kenneth S. Burton ’51, Eleanor Hoyle, Dale (Dusty) K. Miller, Bill Cleveland, and Adeline Turner ’28.”
1968 JACK HAIN “I remember rooming with Ted Hunter our junior year. What a fiercely independent personality! Creative as hell, and smart as a whip. He and I were in geometry class together. The difference between us was that I actually went to class each day and laboriously spent hours developing each proof assigned for homework every night in the basement of Drayton after lights out. It was my favorite subject. He, on the other hand, never went to class, never did any homework, and never opened his geometry textbook. Three days before finals, he asked me to teach him geometry, since he knew nothing about the subject. I obliged him, sitting down with him after dinner each night and beginning at Chapter 1, going through the entire book. When test day arrived, l was shocked to see that Ted actually appeared, and we took the exam together. I anxiously waited for the results. When they did, I was pleased to see that I scored a solid 91 percent! Ted, scored 96 percent.”
1969 JOHN R. BOONE “As I recall my time at George School, the main thing I think about was the school’s environment where everything was possible. Fortunately for me I took advantage of as much as I could and it is still paying dividends.”
1960-1979
JEAN PLATT ROSPONDEK “Faculty members at George School have always been willing to go out of their way, on their own time, to help students get a better understanding of material being covered. It was always presented with the understanding that everyone does not learn in the same way or at the same pace. Consultation was/is the best opportunity for students to solidify their knowledge. My favorite teacher memories are of Dorothy (Dottie) W. Detwiler and William (Bill) M. Craighead ’44, two teachers with whom I have kept up all these many years after graduation. My favorite campus memories were running on the cross-country course on my own and going down to the pond at sunset. My favorite weather-related memory is of ‘Thunder Snow’ and a rare snow day off on campus.”
N o ta b l e M i l e s t o n e s
STEPHEN A. SOMERS
study is added.
“A faculty tribute: Constance Sigler—the first teacher who made it clear to me as a bumpkin fifteen-year-old that I had my own voice, never mind all the sophisticated New York City kids in that English class. Personal tribute: to Katherine (Kate) Augenblick Somers ’70 with whom I had my first date on October 4, 1968 at a dance in the girls’ gym, and who has survived fifty years of that voice. School tribute: George School Quakerism in the face of March for Our Lives (and with grandchildren to worry about).”
“Open houses,” in which members of the
1963 Town Meetings are a “new experiment in student government.”
1965 Cougar becomes George School’s athletic symbol.
1969 Eric Curtis stars as Henry Higgins in the school’s production of My Fair Lady.
1970 A course in pollution and environmental
opposite sex are allowed in dorms during social hour, begin. Students serve as representatives on the George School Committee.
1971 Drug Council, a peer-counseling forerunner of Students Associated for Greater Empathy (SAGE), is created by Quentin W. Nelson ’71 and teacher
1970
John R. Gleeson III ’65.
WENDY PICKERING ADAMS
1974
“Miss Detwiler made a lasagna dinner, took us to Goodnoes for ice cream, and was so caring. Kindness of bearer (KOB) notes and Motown music. Ski trips and dances in the old gym. Enjoying the beautiful campus in springtime, fall, and winter. Walking to Newtown on the woodsy path before the highway. Volunteering at Eastern State Hospital (maybe why I became a social worker later). My lifelong friends. White tablecloths in dining room and sticky buns!”
The Twelfth Street Meetinghouse is moved
ROGER L. KAY “When I arrived as a freshman in 1967, I pretty quickly decided that I could handle five courses at a time. [Since] the requirement for graduation was sixteen courses, I saw right away that on such an accelerated diet, I would be only one course short after three years. “There was one hurdle; every student had to have four years of English. No way around it. I proposed to the assistant principal that I do an independent study for junior year English. Kenneth Keskinen came up with the curriculum. The course involved reading twenty books, writing four papers, and taking a final exam.
piece by piece to George School and reconstructed on campus.
1975 A course on death and dying expands to three sections to meet demand.
1976 Esperanto is offered as a foreign language.
1977 The original George School tree logo debuts, known in some circles as the Broccoli.
1979 Boys’ soccer is undefeated for the first time in forty years, and girls’ soccer is added. The number of international students grows and an English as a Second Language course is added.
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“Everything went along swimmingly, at least on the surface, and the summer I was to make the jump from sophomore to senior I set off with a pile of books to do a year’s worth of English in three months. Problem was, I had a summer job at my roommate John Rarig’s farm, and I was too tired at night to read. “One day I was sitting outside the barn with another farmhand taking a smoke break when Mrs. Rarig came out of the house screaming at us about the fire hazard. She fired me on the spot. “But this was good for me. I was not getting any reading done, and the summer was flying by. So I hitchhiked back to Massachusetts and decided to give living with my dad a try. I spent all day every day reading. I was making progress. I started writing papers when my dad’s wife took my behavior as laziness. I was on the road again at the end of August, with four books yet to read and one paper to complete. I decided to hitchhike back to George School and arrived four days before students were due back. I went straight to Ken’s house. He was surprised to see me, but understood immediately what was going on. He made some calls, and the grounds crew opened up Drayton for me. “I managed to read the last books and write the paper just as the other students began arriving. A few days later, I took the test, which Ken proctored. After that, I officially joined the Class of 1970.”
JEFFREY (JEFF) L. LIPKOWITZ “I would like to record a tribute to Bill Burton, my physics teacher my senior year at George School. He inspired a lifelong interest in physics; which after all, is how the world works. If I had had more aptitude in mathematics, I may have been a physicist instead of a physician. Beyond that, there are two comments he made that I vividly recall to this day. 1) ‘Life is much easier if you have a Swiss Army knife.’ Aside from airport TSA checkpoints, this has proven true. 2) ‘If you do not learn more than the people who teach you know, after successive generations, no one will know much of anything.’ “The last one is a wonderful motivation for students in any field, and extends to everything we do as adults. What better retort to ‘why do I have to learn this?’”
CATHERINE A. SHAW “In the spring of 1970 Kenneth Keskinen taught a new class, The Literature of Politics, that included readings in political philosophy and literature. He led us in careful examination of the texts and posed tough questions, encouragimg us to examine our beliefs about what constitutes a good society and how it might be achieved. Kek, as we called him (his signature was usually ‘KEK’),
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was a gifted teacher, able to help us develop our ideas without pushing in any direction. He was also a helpful critic of writing—patient, good humored, and always encouraging. Kek set me on a path that included the study of political philosophy, writing about it, and working toward the good society we discussed so often in his class. I remember him with gratitude each time I pick up a book, a pen, or a call to civic action.”
1971 ANTONIO (TONY) P. JACKSON “I wanted to recognize Robert (Bob) W. Geissinger for his positive impact on all of the students, faculty, staff, family, and friends of the George School community for over fifty years. I will always remember his integrity when, with tears in both of our eyes, he would not allow me to play in the varsity boys’ Penn Jersey Championship game. The physician had not released me to play and Geis had promised my parents that he would not play me unless I had been released. I was captain of the team but did not play a single game because of a knee injury. Second, I became first string quarterback for the varsity boys’ football team during an era when African Americans were not often considered to play that position. I am sure that idea never crossed his mind.”
TOD J. KAUFMAN “At a time in history when no one as young had ascended to the nomination of the vice presidency, Julian Bond ’57 was hoisted into the lime-light on the Democratic National Convention floor in Chicago in 1968. As a youthful twenty-eight-year-old Georgia House of Representative member leading an insurgent (peace plank) civil rights delegation from Georgia, Julian Bond’s name was placed in nomination for vice president. “In the Chicago hotel suite of California Assembly Speaker Jesse ‘Big Daddy’ Unruh, Delegate Julian Bond, Congressman Allard Loewenstein, and my late father Paul Kaufman, met to discuss the ‘minority’ peace plank in the Democratic party platform (to end the Vietnam War). The nomination for vice president was the following day. The insurgent convention delegation from Georgia, led by Julian, supported the minority plank against the war and this support was important to the plank’s success. It was in the hotel suite that night that I first met Julian. Several months later, in the fall of 1968, I matriculated at George School. “Julian and I remained friends for the next fortyseven years. I introduced him at a public lecture at Tufts in 1973 and before three statewide audiences in West Virginia: Martin Luther King Day, during Black
1960-1979
1978 Skateboarding. 1979 Shift. 1976 John R. Gleeson III ’65, English class. 1979 John T. Sears, painting and drawing class.
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1971 Newspaper clipping shared by Elizabeth (Beth) S. Taylor. 1972 Photo shared by Valerie (Val) Kester Morrissey.
History Month and at West Virginia State College (now University). We spent those evenings together before and after his speeches and at dinner one night I took him to visit the jail, talking with inmates and officers. “During his speech at West Virginia State College, he spoke of his disdain for the movement to transfer the Albert C. Barnes art collection from Merion to downtown Philadelphia near the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Julian’s father, the first African-American president of Lincoln University, Horace Mann Bond, and Albert Barnes were the closest of friends. Julian’s reverence for the Barnes’ collection’s former home was genuine, notwithstanding the magnificent Barnes Museum as it stands today with the art as Mr. Barnes originally hung it in his main line home. “His life was a testament to eliminate race-based discrimination and Julian’s commitment to civil rights. In the spirit of what George School is all about, the portrait of Julian at George School is a further way to remember him.”
ELIZABETH S. TAYLOR “Dorothy (Dottie) Coppock was our English teacher and then a dean, whose care and mentoring went beyond the classroom or office. She served as our class sponsor and many of us in the Class of 1971 have memories of one-on-ones with her that cheered us up, calmed us, or guided us through the jungle of teen angst more logically. “For our years, 1967-1971, the Vietnam War was most pressing. So, for us the most memorable events were the Moratorium days—organizing, holding a silent vigil in Newtown, planting a circle of ‘peace trees’ beyond the pond, and holding candles at night to create a circle of light on the lawn. After one national lottery for the draft, I remember the sadness and anxiety of one classmate, who was already eighteen, when he got a low
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number. Overnight, his options were changed. It was a tough time for every young man and his loved ones.”
VALERIE (VAL) KESTER MORRISSEY “As a legacy of previous Quaker generations, I attended George School from 1968-1972. My sister and I were the third generation in our family to attend. During this period George School went through a radical transformation. In my freshman year, 1968-1969, there was a rigid dress code. Girls wore their skirts at proper kneelength and NO jeans or pants to class. I once got Friday Evening (FESH) for wearing pants to Elizabeth (Betty) Powell’s freshman arts class which was right before my gym class on the hockey field. Boys shaved and wore trousers, jackets, ties, and NO jeans to class. Ties were required at class and meals. As a sort of protest boys wore hand-knit (badly) ties made by their girlfriends. There was formal dining, three meals a day in Main dining room with a teacher at each table. The teachers were addressed as Mr. Laramore, Mr. Moore, or Miss Robinson, not Julius, Clark, or Elizabeth. “Iconoclastic social changes in America soon reached our campus. Progressive rock and roll with controversial lyrics, flower children, radical troublemakers, and alternative lifestyles. To be honest, I was quite caught up in the excitement and euphoria of the times myself. “The pivotal year at GS was 1969-1970. Among the many changes, cafeteria-style dining was introduced, adding an element of casual informality. The dress code was abolished which had a strong effect on the campus mood. Beards and long hair were allowed. No more ties. Extremely short skirts. We could wear jeans to class and be total slobs if we wanted. Visitation rules between boys and girls became more relaxed. “There were changes in the curriculum. Civil rights and feminism were discussed. Classes were less struc-
1960-1979
1972 Photo shared by Margo E. Garrison. “Friends and still getting together for almost fifty years: Roberta (Rocky) Tomascoff, Barbara L. Gregson, Margo E. Garrison, Nancy Brockway Marrin.”
tured and teachers were called by their first names. The school allowed us to hold town meetings and even participate in the nationwide Moratorium Day in 1969. Many students were outspoken and gave the poor headmaster Eric G. Curtis a real workout. But he was a gentleman, kind and wise, and I give him high marks for maintaining his serenity during this time. “Separate from the political scene, an outstanding part of school life was the Music and Theater Department. There were several ambitious and sophisticated stage productions, such as My Fair Lady (starring Eric Curtis), West Side Story, The Mikado, Three Penny Opera, and Noye’s Fludde (by Benjamin Britten) under the guidance of the innovative music director Michael Sherrin. This production was also videotaped, which was new technology at the time. “Quiet and unnoticed was the arrival of the computer to campus and to its own special lab in the library. Russell (Russ) M. Weimar ’48 was in charge. Little did anyone know that after things calmed down during the mid-1970s and the Vietnam War ended, that the computer would revolutionize education and life as we knew it!”
1973 BARBARA HILLEGASS HEARD “My most special teachers were John T. Sears (art) and Robert (Bob) S. Mandel (drama). John took me and a couple other serious art students to life drawing classes off campus in the evenings. I loved participating in the musical Journey of Persephone, and I loved creating scenery for both that musical, and another one we did earlier in the year. My father, Robert Hillegass, taught English at George School 1950-1960. I lived on campus from the time I was born until I was five. As a child I played with other faculty children including Elizabeth (Betty) Sharpless, Jeffrey (Jeff) L. Tempest ’74, Gwyndaf
(Gwen) Jones, and Stephen (Steve) A. Weimar ’75. I loved walking down by the river and into the nearby corn and strawberry fields. I send my love to all of you reading this.”
JOHN B. HOFFMAN “Many faculty members had a great impact on my life. Paul A. Machemer ’65 was my advisor, mentor, freshman Algebra I teacher, and tennis coach junior and senior years. Paul was also my son’s advisor at George School. Paul is a simply amazing guy. He treats everyone with the most profound dignity and respect. Paul was also an exceptional sounding board and superb role model for students and peers alike. “David (Dave) R. Satterwaithe ’65 was my cross country coach through senior year. He is an all-around amazing guy, always positive, high energy, with an incredible joie de vivre and love of life. Dave worked incredibly well with students and made everyone feel valued, from the best to the worst (me) runners on the team. “Dirk L. Dunlap was my tennis coach freshman and sophomore years. Dirk had a very keen understanding of the game, and how to bring out the best from all of his players. “Kay Edstene and Francis (Fran) E. Bradley were truly exceptional history teachers, as well as mentors and role models for George School students. Dorothy (Dottie) W. Detwiler, math teacher extraordinaire, and bedrock of the faculty and GS community. My French teacher, Madame Elizabeth Metzel, brought out the very best in all of her students through sheer force of will, and a ruler across the knuckles if you spoke out of turn, or failed to adequately prepare for class. And, last but not least, David L. Bourns who is largely responsible for powerful and transformational work to which I have dedicated my adult life.”
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CHANGING TIMES
KAREN J. HOSSFELD “I first arrived at George School on a scorching day in 1970. As people lined up to register outside on the main quad, several guys were blasting their favorite rock ’n’ roll records out their dorm windows. In the midst of the sound mix, I heard a quirky tune and looked up. Leaning out one of the windows was a tall, skinny, red haired kid in big glasses, wildly jerking his arms and unabashedly singing along—off-key—to the theme song of Sesame Street. It was ‘friend love’ at first sight and sound. Forty-eight years later, our friendship is still going strong. Thank you, Sigmund (Sig) J. Roos ’72. And thank you, George School. “I reveled in the mischief and camaraderie of using dining room trays to mudslide down the hill in front of Main, after a killer rainstorm. Just as much, I value the lessons that came later: learning how to tend the lawn we had ruined. And learning to respect the work, and the friendship, of those who taught us: the maintenance staff. (The demerit from the dean, not so much.) Still to this day, over forty years after moving out of Main, whenever I happen to look at a clock at 9:15 p.m., I still yell out, ‘Study hall’s over! Time to go see boys!’”
ELEANOR (ELLIE) S. LATHROP “I just returned from a three-week trip to Kenya. It brought back many good memories of the 1972 summer mission trip to Uganda in which I got to participate. I have always appreciated Mark and DeDe Feldman, our faculty leaders, for taking ten teenagers to a very foreign land. It was a wonderful eight weeks laying bricks for the two classrooms we built and exploring the wilds of Uganda and northern Tanzania. Our trip concluded with camping on the beach of Mombasa, Kenya for four days.”
Muddy clumps of thought that we hauled out of our verbal pits were regularly appraised by this velvet-toned, yet fiercely articulate, instructor like they were the finest diamonds. Our lack of preparation and our willingness to sidle away from intellectual challenge—the garden variety idiocy that we brought with us from junior high—were to him a divine task, a calling that left him most days standing before the gates of enlightenment, waving an arm wrapped in a corduroy Norfolk jacket like a conductor seeking the softest tone available from his strings. He primed the pumps of our brains cheerfully and tirelessly, searching for any trickle of original thought. Evidently he could hear music in the clanking. “Away from the class, we all carried the low hum of continuing thought with us. Or at least I did. A turn of phrase that seemed so fine and simple that I knew I could never have come up with it myself would harass and fascinate me, repeating itself over and over, surviving my unconscious and primitive attempts at deconstructive analysis. One measure of his influence on us was the number and quality of impressions of the man performed by members of the class. “The wilder we got on campus, the more he demanded intellectual integrity. It was one of his basic rules of engagement, and I believe it saved me from being swallowed up by my own rebellious hype. As I followed his deliberate footsteps across the plain of my ignorance, he helped me realize that wisdom was not some place you ended up, but the route you took getting there. I still tip a figurative baseball cap to the charming man for that, and I can just see his houndstooth Sherlock hat being raised with a thumb under the brim, his moustache on the prowl.”
JEFFREY S. SCHWARTZ JOHN E. OLDACH “I do not know how the wisdom accumulated in Arthur H. Brinton, the short, wiry Irishman with the minor lisp and the fingertips always snapping gently at the points we dared to make out loud in his classroom. He would hear them and look up into a firmament pierced with hanging lights, and his face would shine in fresh revelation as he carefully repeated our meager thoughts to the unseen panel of muses that always assembled for freshman English up there near the ceiling. This was the period in my life when new and startling ideas pelted me daily with the insistence of a bully chucking snow balls, and I could not shed my ignorance fast enough to move into position to retaliate. “But here in his corner classroom at Bancroft a truce prevailed. We could be stupid without penalty.
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“Has it been forty-five years? Was I a distracted student, barely passing in my public high school before coming to George School? Did I thrive and form relationships that have lasted all these years? Have I reflected on my time since leaving George School, realizing that without it my life would have been so opposed to the successes I have had in my professional and personal life? I cannot identify one individual who encouraged me, spent individual time with me, who nurtured me. The entire school did. The entire staff did. I was so blessed to have been given that opportunity. Thank you George School!”
1976 JULIANNE COBB FONTENOY “The first time I met Carolyn B. Lyday was the first day I arrived on campus from Colorado, a day early, alone,
1960-1979
1965 Girls’ tennis. 1970s Football. 1960s Girls’ basketball with Anne C. LeDuc, coach. 1979 Equestrian.
and terrified. She was new to George School too, but still saved me from tears as I was being questioned gruffly by Clark D. Moore about what exactly I was doing there. But the real impact was later, when I took Soviet Literature with her. She taught me how to keep a reading journal and write papers that earned As. She created an atmosphere in classes in which we had intense class discussions about the various themes flowing through the books. I learned more about literary analysis in that class than all the other English classes I ever took put together. She was one teacher who allowed that there might be multiple interpretations of literature and taught us not only how to come up with our own interpretations but also how to back them up. To her I attribute my ability to enjoy literature even after I graduated from college and was just reading for fun.”
MAVIS MATHIS SMITH
were both North Carolinians. I visited her home several times. She was in college at Guilford. On the other hand Vanessa E. Randolph and I were very good friends. She traveled to North Carolina with me several times and to New York. We used to keep in touch on a regular basis until 2016. Anyone ever see her?”
1977 ELIZABETH (LIZ) L. BOWEN “I was Mark S. Wiley’s first advisee. He took his job very seriously, even traveling to my home to meet my parents. We had an old grand piano which Mark proceeded to tune. My parents never forgot it! I remember sharing grape soda with Robert (Bob) F. Porter and Saturday morning work detail with Dale (Dusty)K. Miller. At my first meeting when someone stood up and said, ‘I hate math.’ I knew I was in the right place!!”
“I will always cherish my friendship with Jean D. Boyd ’77. She was killed while vacationing with her family in the Bahamas years ago. We became friends because we
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1997 Ed Youtz and Polly Lodge assist students with computer modeling. 1993 The community gathers in the meetinghouse.
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End of a Century THE EIGHTIES A ND NINETIES
“ M inding the Light means that the affairs of the soul are more important than the affairs of the world, not because the affairs of the world are unimportant, but because the affairs of the soul—love among God’s children—are more urgent.” —David Bourns
W
HILE THE COU N TRY V EER ED to the right under Reagan and Bush, George School continued straight ahead under David Bourns, head of the school for these two decades and the first who chose not to be called “headmaster.” Many of the recognizable features of George School today—its diversity, international flavor, focus on environmental sustainability, the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, and that gathering place and Four Square venue playfully dubbed Red Square— were born or solidified in the 1980s and 1990s. In the early 1980s, people of color represented 8 percent of the student body. By the late 1990s, it was 19 percent (similar for faculty and administration), approximating the nation at large. Even in the late 1980s, when cultural diversity had been achieved— balanced among African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians—most students were middle-class. Economic diversity became one of David’s goals. To achieve it, the financial aid budget was expanded, using both school and outside sources. One of George School’s new partners was the Albert G. Oliver Program, formed in 1984 by John Hoffman ’73. It and other programs like it have connected scholars from underserved communities to George School ever since. International representation increased and broadened, too. For 1981–1982 the student body represented twenty-six states and thirteen countries from every continent except Australia and Antarctica. A full ESL program began in 1989. By 1998, the first students from Cuba and Vietnam had arrived. International cross-pollination flowered. Work camps expanded to new locales: Kenya, Nicaragua (still going strong), Vietnam (the first high school to go there), India, Israel, and Palestine. Other exchange programs brought basketball teams to and from Cuba,
science students to Costa Rica, and students from George School’s Russian sister school. When a North Korean delegation visited in 1997, South Korean students met with North Koreans for the first time. Varied speakers also came and expanded students’ worldview. In 1991, Dith Pran, the Cambodian photojournalist whose life inspired the movie The Killing Fields, spoke at assembly. Two years before, Kermit the Frog and Muppet creator Jim Henson, father of Heather ’89, took the same stage. Interest in the environment continued to grow. In 1980, students helped build the Alternative Energy Center, a high-tech greenhouse and environmental learning center. Also that year state-of-the-art computers became part of a classroom. A lab with Apple IIe computers followed five years later. Campbell and Westwood were the first new dorms since 1903 when they were built in 1991 and 1995 respectively. Also for first-year students, Peer Group— in which juniors help freshmen adjust to George School—arrived in 1987. The biggest curricular change in decades—the International Baccalaureate—started small, awarding the first IB Diploma to Ari Solow in 1987. Three student-written musicals debuted under the guidance of musical theater teacher Michael Sherrin. The most famous, at least in hindsight, was a revue called Among Friends, which featured the toe-tapping numbers “Meeting for Worship,” “On Shift,” and “South Lawn Losers,” among others. Though George School during these two decades was not marked by the same youthful, cause-driven unrest as the previous ones, the school remained vibrant and relevant while reaching the century mark in 1993.
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1980
1981
REBECCA (BECKY) PAXTON
ANONYMOUS CLASS MEMBER
“I am not sure what year it was, but for a couple of weeks before Christmas break, these gigantic signs began appearing around campus on brown roll paper: • ‘Zuzu’s rose petals await you’ • ‘Buffalo Gals won’t you come out tonight?’ • ‘Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings’ • ‘What’s new in Bedford Falls?’ • ‘Find out Friday night at 7 p.m. in the auditorium’ “We were all excited! The campus was all abuzz. No one knew what was going on. On Friday night, all the boarders, and many of the day students filed into Walton. Thanks to Nancy Cocks Culleton and Nita C. Lescher ’70, we were treated to It’s a Wonderful Life! “Seems so silly now, but back in the late 1970s, none of us had ever heard of this amazing black and white film. We loved having classic films shown. But this was different. To have two of our George School parents want to share this with us in such a creative, enticing way was so special. I have told my children this story, and will share Nita’s and Nancy’s clues with my grandchildren so they can enjoy the mystery. We really had loving caretakers! Thank you so much!”
“Robert (Bob) E. Porter and John R. Gleeson III ’65 co-taught two AP courses, pairing American History and American Literature in 1980 and 1981. Those two single course curricula, the discussions and thinking these two teachers provoked, their complimentary reading lists, and their availability to mentor me had a uniquely positive impact on my life. Rarely does a day go by when I am not influenced by how John helped me think about balancing the interests of the individual versus the community, or by Bob helping me think about social equity in historical terms. To me, those two teachers represent the very best of the profession.”
CYNTHIA (SINDI) JACKSON TSURUTA “At George School we learned we could apply for the Student Conservation Corp (SCC), and I did so for the summer of 1978 Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah. I was selected, accidently as I later found out. (They picked my name as an alternate from the ‘wrong pile’ I was told. But oh, how it was meant to be!) “In our group of fifteen students from around the US, was one of my best friends from George School, Leita Hancock Wagner. George School changed my life, and SCC did so as well. With my dinky camera, I took awesome slides to share at assembly. I had a gorgeous photo of a sunset, so my talk about the experience was chosen to be last, with that last photo. “Most of us are nervous to speak in front of large groups of people, as was I. I had been a student only one year, but that morning in front of assembly, my mind surprised me by suddenly speaking up: ‘Everyone here is my friend. I’m telling my FRIENDS about this amazing time.’ I relaxed, and I spoke about one of the best times of my life to all my FRIENDS! With tears in my eyes as I write this, I will always remember that. The cherry on top was hearing a classmate say my speech had been the best of the five or six shared.”
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DAVID S. JACOBY “Thank you to Bob Waters, my ninth grade US History teacher, who reinforced our sense of civic responsibility by making the class read and debate editorials in The New York Times every day.”
LISA LABALME OSTERLAND “Malcolm (Mac) McNaught taught me to love the night sky in Astronomy class. I clearly remember lying on the soccer fields in complete silence (his wise request) and staring with awe at the stars above. Years later, I became an elementary science teacher and passed on my love, fascination, and appreciation of the constellations to ten years of fourth graders (probably 400 in all), who also became passionate about what I had taught them. I wrote him a letter to tell him about this back in the 1990s. What comes around, goes around. Thank you, Mac! “My most memorable campus events were: • W hen a few guys stole the moosehead from another school and presented it to the head of school at dinner one night. • T he crazy night many students had a ball sliding in the slickest, muckiest mud down to the pond over and over again, well beyond our 10:00 p.m. curfew. • T he day during our senior year when a bunch of guys, led by the inimitable Aubrey W. Haines, put the tables and chairs from the entire dining room out on South Lawn. “I would like to send a shout-out to all the young ladies of Second East and to Ashley Garrett ’76, our dorm parent, in the year of 1980-1981. I was the singleton senior prefect. Being amongst those feisty and fun girls was a complete blast and a humble privilege.”
1980-1999
1985 Equestrian program. 1980 Paul A. Machemer ’65, math class. 1984 Claudie D. Fischer, French class. 1983 Judy Bartella, ceramics class. 1983 Dale (Dusty) K. Miller, science class.
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1983 Student looks through library catalog. 1988 Students still meet at the “Donut.” 1990 Making apple butter during Harvest Weekend. 1993 The Class of 1994 celebrates the school’s centennial. 1990 George School students.
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1980-1999
1983 Thomas (Tom) C. Hoopes, with sons Joseph T. Hoopes ’20 and Robert (Jacob) Hoopes ’19, shares commencement photos of family members.
1983 THOMAS (TOM) C. HOOPES “The spirit of George School has run through my veins from before I can remember. I have visions of walking around the campus with my brother as little boys, accompanying our parents and sisters and aunts and grandparents as they reminisced about their short years
SUSAN KEIM WIGGINS “When reflecting on my years at GS recently, I was thinking about the very kind and generous boarding students who let me keep books, notebooks, and athletic equipment in their rooms. In ninth grade I used Brown House, the place where girl day students had lockers. But it seemed far from the main campus and I was not very good with time, so I was often late to class. Sophomore year I kept my books and other things in Courtney K. Taylor’s and Lauren Maxim Van Wazer’s room. It was kind of them to allow me to do so! At the time it somehow did not occur to me that it was likely an inconvenience to have me coming into their room frequently. Junior year I kept my books and things in Janis Parrilla’s room. It was the same, Janis was so generous and kind. She never made me feel like an intruder or a nuisance. Senior year I practically moved into Susan (Sue) W. Knight’s room—I was lucky because Sue did not have a roommate and it was a big room. I stayed overnight frequently and really enjoyed being a little bit part of the life of the hall. I am glad I can communicate now how grateful I was (or should have been!) toward these classmates. In those days, some of us day students
here that remained etched on their souls. Sometimes walking down South Lawn now, or through the Outdoor Auditorium, or into the Meetinghouse, I hear reverberations of my own adolescence, mingling with the echoes of my forebears. Now that my own children’s streams have merged with the great river, I have the sense of touching eternity.”
felt a bit left out of the life of the school. Being able to store belongings in Main allowed me to more fully engage in the life of the community.”
1985 TANYA Y. WRIGHT “Dorothy (Dottie) W. Detweiller’s milk and cookies at her home when she tutored me in algebra. She was so kind, generous, and patient!”
1986 RUDY BERK “I have so many great memories from GS, it is hard to pick one. My best memories are related to the dances we held, the amazing local and national bands who performed, and how much fun we all had at those.”
1989 VERONIQUE S. VAILLANCOURT “I vividly remember Christmas my junior year, and what a surprise it was, because it was my and my roommate Katherine (Katie) Winn Boyer’s first year at George School. It was like a return to childhood, not to be able
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V
1983 Girls’ lacrosse. 1988 Softball. 1980s Boys’ lacrosse. 1989 Boys’ basketball. 1985 Cheerleading.
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1980-1999
to peek, and having to wait until morning to see what our prefects had done to the hall. Needless to say when Katie and I were prefects the following year, we had a blast surprising our prefectees with decorations and surprises for their Christmas. Fun times!”
1991 WINTER N. MILLER “Kermit and the man behind the frog, Jim Henson, spoke at assembly in 1989. Kermit was at the lectern, looked out at a full assembly and said, ‘I’ve never been to George School, how is it?’ The audience roared. “In 1989, a group of us took a van to Washington DC to march for universal access to abortion, perhaps a dozen of us. Emily (Emmy) Laybourne Podunovich ’89 and Heather B. Henson ’89 were in the van and I remember thinking, I am at the right school when we can borrow an athletic van to go to a protest march in support of women’s lives. “Speaking of athletic vans, the legendary Anne C. LeDuc had an uncanny ability to drive the van to an away basketball game while turning her head nearly 180 degrees to address her passengers about game strategy. I do not know how she did it. Perhaps she had enough good karma from how much she loved coaching us and all the years she did it.”
N o ta b l e M i l e s t o n e s 1980 Intergenerational programs with Pennswood Village, the new retirement community on former school farmland, begin.
1982 Kenneth G. Wilson ’52 is the first alumnus to win a Nobel Prize. Julia Balderston, Class of 1897, celebrates her 85th reunion at Alumni-Parents Weekend and receives a standing ovation.
1989 The George School Children’s Center brings little ones to campus. The new Head of School List honors students for diligence, attitude, and commitment.
1990 Students attend workshops during the first Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration.
1996 ALICE H. WU
1992
“So happy to welcome my son Alexander to the world! I am hoping he will be a part of the Class of 2036 maybe with classmate kids from Angela V. Desai and Michelle Olson. I loved my time at George School. Some of the more memorable parts include being part of the first school service learning trip to Vietnam, learning ceramics, and the many wonderful teachers I had such as Ralph D. Lelii and Thomas (Tom) R. English.”
The History of a Quaker Community, by
1997 JULIE L. SPEARS “I still feel such an incredible sense of gratitude and love for George School. Because dance was such an important part of my being then, and still is, I must mention Barbara L. Kibler. Barbara was always such a centering, caring, and inspiring presence for me. One of the most positive aspects of my GS experience was dance and I owe that to Barbara. I must also mention another enormous source of my high school happiness, Sara W. Wilson. Sara was my comic relief, my fun, my best friend while at George School. I know I am not the only one who fondly remembers her doing the worm dance on Red Square. Sara was, and continues to be, the icing on my cake, or, should I say, sticky bun.”
The School publishes George School: Kingdon Swayne ’37, in honor of the school’s upcoming centennial. Havurah, the first Jewish campus organization, begins. Curious George, the student newspaper, starts publication.
1996 A boys’ African-inspired step dance program begins. A girls’ program will follow in a few years.
1999 The high cost of custom buff and brown uniforms leads to a change of school colors to green and white.
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2010 The community gathers for assembly in Walton. 2010 Associate Dean Pippa Porter Rex reviews the weekend schedule with members of the Student Activities Board.
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New Century THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM
“ I want our students to see in action here in their daily lives the kind of community they can create when they leave here, and I want them to feel confident and compelled when they leave to create it.” —Nancy Starmer
F
OR MOR E T H A N A C E N T U RY, while the world prospered, endured turmoil, and changed—at a seemingly accelerating pace—George School had prospered, endured, and changed, too. Sometimes the campus felt like an oasis, protected from what was happening outside. At others, George School reached out into the world, embracing the unfamiliar and the challenging. Sometimes it did both at once. The school’s reaction to the events of September 11 was emblematic. The community held meeting for worship and a blood drive, facing the horrific by coming together, listening, sharing, and giving—long the George School way. Other disasters, of human and natural making, also moved faculty and students to act. They held fund-raisers and awareness-raisers, and they went beyond typical arm’s-length aid through a service program designed around face-to-face contact with the underserved, and the reflection that leads to deeper understanding. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for example, dance students performed to zydeco, and the school initiated a Mississippi service trip with Habitat for Humanity that continues to this day. In 2006, three juniors launched Art for Relief, a benefit rooted in the community’s strength in the visual and performing arts. It raised over $5,000 for Habitat for Humanity its first year. It, too, continues, with a different annual beneficiary. The greening of George School also spread, through the activism of faculty, staff, the board, and students. The Arboretum Committee (2003) and Environmental Sustainability Steering Committee (2007) formed. A new food service provider made dining more sustainable, and tending the organic garden became a physical education choice. Construction projects, including the new Mollie Dodd Anderson
library, the repurposing of McFeely into a history classroom building, and the new Fitness and Athletics Center, were done in (figurative) shades of green, paying attention to LEED guidelines for energy-conscious buildings. Students built a rain garden, and Terra, the environmental club, urged the community to “Mind the Lights” as part of the National Green Cup Challenge. Terra also successfully lobbied to improve water fountains and ban the sale of bottled water in 2013. The Board of Trustees chose to divest the endowment of select fossil fuel-based companies, invest in sustainable energy, and hold a Green Initiative Contest for students. Sustainability was supported by Nancy Starmer, the first female head of school, who arrived with a passion for issues of diversity and curriculum. Diversity in the student body increased to its present makeup—37 percent US students of color and 27 percent international students (representing forty-three countries)— bringing diverse perspectives along with it. Meanwhile, a curriculum overhaul led to the expansion of IB and more course offerings, including religion, Mandarin Chinese, economics, math, and science and technology, especially at higher levels. In 2007, Barbara Dodd Anderson ’50 made an unprecedented donation to George School: a $128.5 million charitable lead annuity trust, payable over twenty years. The board of trustees designated that $4.9 million of the yearly trust distribution be placed in the endowment to support faculty-staff salaries, financial aid, and other critical aspects of the school. Despite this extraordinary gift, George School’s endowment remains notably smaller than that of peer institutions and its operating budget must be met elsewhere. As the school neared the ripe age of 125, Nancy retired, Sam Houser took the helm, and the next chapter of George School history is poised to be written.
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NEW CENTURY
2001
2006
MEREDITH BALDI ALFORD
MARISSA N. VARNEY
“To this day I remain so appreciative of the incredible academic preparation George School provided me. From the moment I arrived at college I was far better equipped than most of my peers to manage my time, read and digest complicated texts, and take the initiative to seek out help from my professors as a result of the high school education I received. The sophistication of George School’s classes and curriculum allowed me to advance quickly beyond the standard 101 courses into advanced seminars, enabling me to get right to the courses that interested me. George School’s education allowed me to get the absolute most from my college experience.”
“Colette Weber had one of the strongest impacts on me as a student academically and personally. Colette was my tenth-grade English teacher and my faculty sponsor for journalism class for three years. Colette was always inspiring me and pushing me to be better and to think more critically about the world around me. “As a teenage girl, I struggled with defining my identity as a woman and what it meant to be both smart and feminine. Colette pushed me to recognize that I was smart and capable and that being so did not diminish my ability to be feminine. This is something I have carried with me in personal and professional life. Her words have stayed with me every time I have doubted myself or my impact as a woman in society and in the workplace. I think about her often and credit her for helping to shape the person I became.”
2002 JOHN T. STEVENS IV “I remember my senior year on the varsity soccer team. I believe we had thirteen seniors. I know Paul A. Machemer ’65 wrote about it on our team page in the 2002 yearbook. We won the FSL championship, and though we lost twice that year, for me it was a perfect season.”
2004 AVERY M. BLANK “Favorite memory: I remember Ralph D. Lelii walking into the classroom and saying, ‘It’s a great day to be alive.’ He made any day better and taught me how to think and to love learning. It is one of the most valuable things anyone has given me and I thank Ralph and the George School environment for nurturing the foundation to become a critical thinker and lifelong learner.”
2005 ROHAN M. ARJUN “John R. Gleeson III ’65 is one of the reasons why I am a boarding school educator. He was my advisor for my four years at GS, my senior year English teacher, and football coach. Gleese, as we called him, knew me better than any adult at school. He taught me what it meant to educate the whole child from the laughs, Krispy Kreme donuts, and guidance during Collection, the most difficult English quizzes that eventually sharpened my attention to detail, and the life lessons that he shared on the field. If I can be half the educator that he was, I will consider my career a success. ‘Thank you’ cannot begin to express my gratitude for Gleese always being in my corner and being a father to a first-generation boarding school kid who was out of his element and away from home.”
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2007 RACHEL A. WELLS “Many of my favorite memories were in the Walton Auditorium with my stage craft classes. I loved striking the sets after a production and then eating pizza on the stage while swinging on a swing that was hanging from the catwalks.”
2009 JOANN RIKER “This year I want to remember the amazing Quaker community and George School bonds I made during my high school days that have supported me along my journey across the globe. The friendships I made at George School have stayed with me throughout all my good times and bad. Even while living and working in Japan and London, my friends and former teachers from George School called, wrote me letters and even came to visit! Now that I am back in the US and expecting my first baby, I can still see so many GS family members reaching out. The Quaker community has taught me so much and I cannot wait to pass on these values and traditions to my new daughter. I look forward to her graduating with the George School Class of 2036 and making the same life long bonds as I did.”
2000-2018
2010 Meeting for worship. 2005 Students take senior dinner dance photos on Red Square. 2014 The George School Chorale performs at Carnegie Hall. 2009 Service learning in Nicaragua. 2012 Scott E. Hoskins, film class.
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2009 Four Square. 2000s Ralph D. Lelii, IB Program director. 2005 Baseball. 2007 George School students. 2009 Girls’ lacrosse.
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2000-2018
2009 Reading on Main South Porch. 2016 George School students. 2011 Students plant a rain garden at Retford. 2016 Homework in Mollie Dodd Anderson Library. 2014 Fitness and Athletics Center opens.
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NEW CENTURY
2012
N o ta b l e M i l e s t o n e s 2003 According to a Peace Center survey, 90 percent of students agree or strongly agree that social and ethnic groups get along well with one another at George School.
2007 Mario Capecchi ’56 is the second graduate to receive a Nobel Prize.
2009 Donor Barbara Dodd Anderson ’50 and family friend Warren Buffett help dedicate the Mollie Dodd Anderson library.
2014 The 100,000-square-foot brick-and-glass Fitness and Athletics Center opens. It is almost four times the size of the old Worth Sports Center. The George School Chorale sings at Carnegie Hall. A new Katsura tree replaces the fallen South
PRISCILLA S. WIGGINS “Kathleen (Kathy) M. Coyle had a profound impact on my life throughout my four years at George School. She had been my oldest brother’s advisor between 2004-2008 (Justin Wiggins ’08), and I was lucky to take his spot in her collection when I started in the fall of 2008. In addition to being my advisor, Kathy was my Science 9 teacher and my dorm head in Westwood in my freshman year. We formed a strong bond and I was happy to interact with her in three different settings, deepening my trust in her. Throughout my sophomore and junior years, Kathy helped me navigate the difficulties that come along with growing up and the pressures of athletics and the college search. My senior year, I was fortunate enough to be a prefect in Westwood where Kathy was still the dorm head, and we were able to form more of a collegial relationship. Kathy was a special type of leader in the community because she knew exactly when to be lighthearted and fun, and when to be serious and keep things in line. Kathy is blunt, intelligent, caring, hilarious, and inspiring, and I am forever grateful that George School connected me with such a wonderful and impactful mentor.”
Lawn Katsura tree that inspired the school
2013
logo.
EMMA WELLS
2015 George School hosts its first TEDx conference. A policy to support transgender students is
“I have sublime memories of stretching in all directions during Andrea M. Barberio’s yoga class. I always cherished rolling out my mat next to Emily S. Smith ’13 and breathing the hectic day away.”
the first among independent boarding schools.
2016 The Math Team ranks thirteenth in the nation in the fall Math Madness competition. Having joined the Interscholastic Equestrian Association (IEA) the previous year, the equestrian team hosts its first IEA competition.
2017 The service/exchange program between Lycée Alfred Kastler and George School celebrates its 60th anniversary. It is the longest-running exchange program between French and American high schools.
2018 More than 300 students participate in the
GEORGI A N QUA S QU IC E N T E N N I A L IS SU E VOLU M E 9 0 NO. 02
G E O R G I A N E D ITO R Susan Quinn georgian@georgeschool.org 215.579.6567
G E O R G I A N S TA F F Christine Davidyock Odie LeFever Andrea Lehman Emma Wells ’13
#GSWalkOut, calling for stronger gun control laws.
DESIGN Rutka Weadock Design © 2018 George School
64 | GE O RGIAN
1943 Measuring the lift of an airfoil in physics.
Printed using soy-based ink on paper containing recycled fiber. Cover and text stock are certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) and contain 10% post-consumer recycled fiber.
Nonprofit
19 86 –P RES ENT
1983 –P RESENT*
KA REN HA LLOWELL S IO
AP
1 96 6
1984 –P RESENT PO LLY LOD GE
19 91–PR ES ENT
TER RY CULLETO N
CL ASS OF 201 9 LA
MICHAE L S HE R RIN
1987–201 8 20 14
1979 –P RESENT
CARTE R SIO
CL ASS OF 201 2 C A ROL LO U
P I P PA P ORT ER REX
PAC HO GUT I ERREZ
20 13
NOR M TJOSSE M S COT T SPE NCE GH
1 9 66 –1 9 9 5*
VINCE CAM P ELLONE
1978 –P RESENT*
Proceeds support tuition assistance and faculty development
1 9 8 3 –2 01 3
1 99 2– P R ESE N T
1975 –P RESENT
CHÉ RI MELLO R
19 62–19 93
JAC KSON SI ZER
Saturday, October 20, 2018
CON N O R STOK LOSA
C L ASS OF 2019
C A ROLYN LYDAY
George School’s Fitness and Athletics Center
For more information, visit www.georgeschool.org/embracetheworld
ODIE LEF EVER
A LYSSA TA LI A FERRO
CL ASS OF 2014
Please join us for a special evening at
6:00 – 11:00 p.m.
MARY DART
NA NC Y B ERNA RDI NI
1967–P RESENT*
1973 –2018
DINNER AND AUCTION
AN N E LEDUC
1978 – PR ES EN T *
G EO R G E LO NG 1975 –2014
EMBRACE THE WORLD
JANE DUNL A P NANCY K RY VEN
1 9 9 6 - P R ES EN T *
GEORGE SCHOOL’S 125TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
1 9 66 –2 01 7 *
1973 –PR ESENT
VI NC E C A M P E LLO NE
C L ASS OF 2 0 12 1950 –196 6 J OHN ST REETZ
1975 –P RESENT
M A RI A C ROSM A N
1987–P RESENT
TOM ENGLI SH AND REW GRIFFIN
C A ROL LO U
1979 –20 18
1981–2015
1966 –2017*
J UDY B A RT ELL A
KATHY ROG ER S
JA NE D UNL A P
1979 – PR ES EN T
C A RT E R SI O
1979 – PR ES EN T
KAT HY ROGERS
KAT I E M C DONOUG H
197 7–20 17
1 9 8 4 – PRESENT
1 9 8 3 –2 01 7
RALPH LELII
C L ASS OF 2013
PAID Baltimore, MD Permit 6440
CL ASS O F 2 015
1987–2018
19 93 –20 13
U.S. Postage
ST E P HA NI E M C B R I D E
CAROLY N LY DAY
1985 –2014
N ANCY CULLETON
MARY DART
1973 –2 0 18
C HI P P O STO N
1 9 8 3 –2 01 2
SC OT T H O SKI NS
N ANCY CULLETON
19 93
1993 –2 0 13
NO R M TJO SSE M
197 7–2 0 17
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