Meeting of Minds - Chaffee Book Club Turns 20

Chaffee School alumnae from near and far gathered virtually on February 24 for the first Chaffee Book Club meeting of 2021, marking the 20th anniversary year of intellectual engagement, spirited discourse, and connection with each other and the rest of the Loomis Chaffee community.

Since its inception in the 2001–02 school year, the Chaffee Book Club has met physically on the Loomis Chaffee campus more than 50 times, and the 137 individual alumnae who have taken part during the club’s 20-year span have collectively read and engaged in discussion of about 55 books across a variety of genres and topics.

At the February 2021 meeting, 20 alumnae met via Zoom videoconference — some from the local area and several from further afield, including Chaffers from California, North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. Loomis Chaffee Trustee Katherine Ballard led a discussion of the book The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton. Katherine is a former Loomis Chaffee faculty member who taught French, served as dean of faculty, and worked in the Alumni/Development Office. In 2001, Katherine and then-Trustee Carole Crane Finck ’66 helped organize the first book club meeting. Katherine says she chose the Wharton classic this year to “take us out of the 21st century — that’s what books do, they take us away and allow us to travel.”

The inspiration for the Chaffee Book Club, according to Katherine, was to welcome the Chaffee alumnae to campus so that they could see how their history of academic excellence and commitment to lifelong learning, discovery, and self-development are reflected in the mission and values of the Loomis Chaffee community.

“[W]e were looking for ways for Chaffee women to rekindle memories of the Palisado Avenue campus days … plus have the opportunity to experience the Loomis Chaffee campus and the exciting people and programs of the present-day school,” Carole comments in an email describing her involvement in the inaugural event.

The format of on-campus Chaffee Book Club meetings has remained constant — an evening gathering in one of many inspirational spaces across the Windsor campus that begins with a reception and dinner, after which a Loomis Chaffee faculty discussion leader facilitates lively and engaging discourse about the book selection.

At first, the meetings were steeped in remembrances and stories from the alumnae’s time at Chaffee, Katherine recalls, but the exchanges that followed were impressive. It was fun to listen to the participants as they leaned into the discussions and shared their ideas with the faculty and each other, she says.

“Like a salon,” she explains, referring to the intellectual gatherings that flourished for centuries in European society.

“They did their homework and came prepared with passages underlined and pages turned down in their books,” Katherine says, noting that Chaffee alumnae take pride in the fact that they were required to pass a rigorous entrance exam — while the Loomis boys were not — and they are not afraid to voice their opinions. Chaffee faculty members Miriam “Mims” Brooks Butterworth ’36, Elaine Title Lowengard ’46, Suzanne Nolan ’69, and Evie Smith ’50 were in regular attendance at the meetings from the beginning and added their intellectual weight to the interactions. Katherine admits to being a little intimidated as a discussion leader, knowing she needed to be well-prepared herself for the occasion.

In consideration of the scholarly Chaffee audience, the faculty leaders have been some of the school’s most respected and beloved — Chaffee teachers Anne Sbarge and Courtney Carey among them — which, according to Carole, was a highlight for many of the attendees.

Book club regulars Carol “Sue” Fisher Shepard ’62 and Anne Schneider McNulty ’72 share the view that faculty leaders make the book club sessions special.

Head of School Sheila Culbert, who teaches a history course at Loomis Chaffee, often has hosted and facilitated book club meetings in the fall. “[A]s an historian, her discussions on Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power [by Jon Meacham], The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks [by Rebecca Skloot], All the Light We Cannot See [by Anthony Doerr], and The Distance Between Us [by Reyna Grande] were insightful and produced lively discussion,” Anne comments.

Both Sue and Anne welcomed the perspectives of several Loomis Chaffee students who joined the book club’s 2015 discussion of Longbourne by Jo Baker, written about the servants portrayed in Pride and Prejudice, after the students had studied Jane Austen’s classic novel in class. Other memorable meetings for Anne included a locally-sourced meal served to coincide with the discussion of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. The conversation was led by Jeff Dyreson and Gratia Lee, faculty members in Loomis Chaffee’s environmental sustainability and agriculture programs. A discussion of Treasures Afoot with school archivist and history teacher Karen Parsons uncovered several interesting stories as participants were asked to bring a pair of shoes with special personal significance, Anne says.

Other memorable faculty discussion leaders have included English teachers Jane Archibald, Fred Seebeck, Jeffrey Scanlon ’79, Sally Knight, Berrie Moos, Scott Purdy, Will Eggers, Kate Saxton, and Jessica Hsieh ’08; history teachers Burt Thurber, Lori Caligiuri, Rachel Engelke, and Molly Pond; science teachers Scott MacClintic ’82, Alice Baxter, Betsy Conger, Edward Pond, and Ewen Ross; math teacher Andrew Matlack; languages teachers Michael Anderson, Sara Deveaux, Elizabeth Parada, and Rachel Nisselson; humanities and arts teachers Dominic Failla, Dennis Robbins, Marilyn Rabetz, and Susan Chrzanowski; and Katharine Brush Librarian Kathie Popadin.

For the Butterworth, Ransom, and Lowengard families, the book club has been an opportunity for generational connection as mothers, daughters, and sisters attended several meetings together. Kate Butterworth Valdez ’67, who has attended 41 of the 55 book club sessions, spoke at the February online meeting about how much she loved attending with her late mother — Mims — and other Chaffee alumnae.

For Carole, who has not been able to join in the club discussions while living in Dallas, Texas; Abu Dhabi; and now Florida, the prospect of joining the February 24 meeting was exciting.

“Now, for me and many others, it’s a blessing to have the possibility of virtual gatherings. We can now ‘Zoom in’ with fellow alums from around the country and world,” she wrote before taking part in the February Zoom meeting.

The February group discussion was indeed good fun, confirms Lisa Salinetti Ross, director of alumni and parent relations at Loomis Chaffee, who has been responsible for organizing the Chaffee Book Club for several years. Lisa says it was great to be able to welcome alumnae who live outside Greater Hartford as well as reconvene the book discussions, which had been temporarily on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coincidently, the 2014 book Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, about a fictional influenza pandemic, was the topic of the last meeting of the book club before the Loomis Chaffee campus closed in March 2020 because of COVID-19.

“I hope we might continue in some respect with an online component, but the social aspects of gathering on campus for a nice dinner before the discussion were missed for sure,” Lisa remarks.

Katherine says she is pleased and proud of the role the Chaffee Book Club has played in the Loomis Chaffee community through the last 20 years. She appreciates all that the school has learned from the Chaffee alumnae. “We have become as proud of their history as they are,” she says.

The Chaffee Book Club has become a tradition on the Island, and Katherine says she hopes that “over time [the alumnae] have come to see that what they loved about Chaffee School is now very much a part of Loomis Chaffee.”

For a list of all the books discussed in the first 20 years of the Chaffee Book Club, visit www.loomischaffee.org/magazine.