Haney Fellow Augusta Ambrose ’21 The Haney Fellowship was established in
I was eleven when I heard Mrs. Helen Sperling speak about
1998 by William “Bill” Haney III ’80, in hon-
her experiences as a Jewish survivor of a Polish ghetto, Aus-
or of his father, the late William Haney, Jr., who lived and worked at Portsmouth Abbey
chwitz, and a death march. I sat in a wooden pew and listened, horrified and inspired, as she urged us “to not be a bystander” to not let the evil which she saw happen in the world happen
School from 1968 to 1991 as a chemistry
again. Mrs. Sperling recently passed away, but, thankfully, her
teacher, houseparent and golf coach. This
stories will live on as people recorded her public talks. But so
creative and generous fund was established
many other men and women from that rapidly disappearing
to provide Fifth Form students with a unique educational experience during the summer before their Sixth-Form year.
generation that lived through the Third Reich still have stories to tell. Alexander and Kathleen von Graevenitz are a couple in their eighties, and my family has known them for over forty years.
Students submit proposals that include a
Kathleen, born in 1933, is the child of German immigrants
statement of purpose, a description of the
who settled in the Midwest. Alexander, born in 1932, grew
program that the applicant wishes to pur-
up in Leipzig and then Bad Reichenhall, Germany. He immi-
sue, and a documented estimate of costs. Students focus their plans on a course of study or travel/work experience that sig-
grated to the United States in his twenties, where he married Kathleen, had three children, and ran a lab at Yale University. They now live in Zurich, where I visited them in the summer of 2019. During a dinner that summer he mentioned his
nificantly furthers an existing academic interest or allows for the pursuit of a specialized opportunity. Awarded on the basis of their submitted proposals and interviews in the winter of the students’ Fifth-Form year, the Haney Fellows are chosen by Bill Haney ’80 and his mother, Irene, herself a longtime Portsmouth houseparent and valued community member. This year COVID-19 thwarted the plans of our Haney Scholars in different ways. Augusta Ambrose ’21 describes the objectives of her fellowship and how she adapted to the pandemic challenges. Augusta on a visit with Kathleen von Graevenitz in Zurich, Switzerland in 2012
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