THE BLUE DOORS 1 Nightingale- Bamford School Volume 5 Issue

THE BLUE DOORS 1

÷e Blue Doors TheNightingale-Bamford SchoolVolume 5Issue 1Fall 2010

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Puppet MasterAnna Sobel ’97 has travelled extensively, using puppets to share positive messages with children around the world. ost famous peaks.

History in the MakingNightingale is partnering with the Gilder Lehrman Institute to bring a new level of historical connection into the classroom.spearhead the new Children’s Radio Foundation, which just broadcast its first show on South African public radio.

8 Why Study LatinLatin has been part of Nightingale’s core curriculum since our inception. Here, classics teacher Jeff Kearney addresses whether Latin has a place in modern education.

The Nightingale Graduate of 2017The Board of Trustees approve a vision statement for the future of Nightingale.

ExpressionA special section featuring the voices and visions of students, faculty, and alumnae of the Nightingale-Bamford School.

AlumnaeReunion 2010 and alumnae receptions around the world.

HallwaysStories and photographs from around the schoolhouse.

Class Notes

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THE BLUE DOORS

Volume 5, Issue 1Fall 2010

A biannual publication ofThe Nightingale-Bamford School20 East 92nd StreetNew York, New York 10128www.nightingale.org

We would like to hear from you! Letters to the editor, class notes, story suggestions, corrections, and any questions you have may be directed to [email protected].

DESIGN

Pentagram

LAYOUT

CZ Design

PRINTING AND MAIL ING

Finlay Printing PHOTOGRAPHY

All photography courtesy of subject unless otherwise noted: Cover, Nightingale Fair, and The Mikado by David S. Hughes Harold Holzer and Expressions photography by Darrel Frost Sofia Martinez, Class VIII drummers, and Class of 1960 by Alissa Kinney Expression calligraphy by Nancy Howell

Class of 2010 formal portrait by Matthew Septimus Reunion event photography by Chris Lee and Jennifer Taylor

On the cover: Caroline Lipe ’10 performs in “Intersecting Paths,” choreographed by dance teachers Jeanne Finnigan-John and Allison Trotta, at the Varsity Dance Concert on February 11, 2010.

THE BLUE DOORS 5

Fore

word

The sounds of construction will soon be starting up next door at 28 East 92nd Street,

the adjacent townhouse we purchased a few years ago. We’ll have to wait another year to

occupy the new classrooms and labs that will go in next door, but for now we are excited

to be finalizing the architectural plans and proceeding with this much-needed project.

As the architects and engineers started the process this summer, though, I noticed

that their hands weren’t full of iPhones or calculators or other modern accessories—they

carried pencils and hammers and tape measures, tools that haven’t functionally altered

their forms in hundreds of years.

I suppose this stuck out to me because we’re in the midst of addressing the very

question of how to incorporate new technologies into our pedagogy. Certainly computers

and the Internet help our teaching—and personally, I couldn’t imagine life without my

Kindle. But I love the idea that some things never change, that sometimes a pencil really

is all that we need.

That’s the challenge, isn’t it? To balance the new technologies with more traditional

ways of teaching. To support our students as technology transforms not just how they

learn but also how they synthesize information and adapt it to their needs. To prepare

both ourselves and our girls for ways of learning that haven’t even been discovered yet.

And through it all, amidst expansion of programs and property, to retain that spirit that

has defined Nightingale since we first opened our doors.

As you peruse this distinctly old-fashioned magazine (paper! ink!), you’ll hear

from some in our community who are finding new ways to share: Anna Sobel ’97 gives

important lessons through her theatrical talents (page 4), and one of our terrific classics

teachers, Jeff Kearney, has some exemplary thoughts on how (and why) we teach Latin

in the modern era (page 8).

And at the heart of this issue, you’ll find examples of that which we uphold most

here at Nightingale: the voice. The words and artistry of alumnae, students, and faculty

are featured in a special “Expression” section that speaks to the creative power of the

Nightingale community.

Warmly,

Dorothy A. Hutcheson

Head of School

Ivanna Gaton ’11 and Alexis Jimenez ‘11 pause while selling caramel apples at the biennial Nightingale Fair on November 7, 2009.

THE BLUE DOORS 54 THE BLUE DOORS

by Zoe Settle ‘00

Mrs C. likes to bake. She’s a bit elderly and a bit flightly with a robust pseudo-British voice, and on a recent Saturday she was whipping up gingerbread: “I need sugar and spice and everything nice.” As Mrs. C selects the decorations, the Gingerbread Boy comes to life, causing giggles throughout the audience of 60 kids who are watching this scene as part of a free Saturday arts program.

Mrs. C is brought to life by Anna Sobel ’97, as are a number of other characters who are out to eat the Gingerbread Boy. First, Sobel’s voice transforms into a sophisticated red hen; then it’s a grey, hip-hop-speaking cat; next it’s Dusty Musty, a mutt dog, followed by Freddy the Fox. Freddy the Fox convinces the Gingerbread Boy to jump on his back to cross the river, only to attempt to eat him, whereupon the Gingerbread Boy courageously dives into the river and learns he can swim. Each animal pretends to befriend and help the one-day-old Gingerbread Boy, but he’s already wise enough to trust his instincts. It’s an inspiring message: believe in yourself and you can do anything.

ACT I. This is a five-year-old show for Sobel, whose attraction to performance art started early. She grew up animating her own paper dolls; where other kids might be preoccupied with their dolls’ clothing and hairstyle, Anna gave each of hers a unique voice. In third grade, she was ecstatic to be cast in the Nightingale performance of Robin Hood, although she only had four lines. In seventh grade,

she was cast as the Modern Major General (she still knows her lines). She has long been a believer, as she says, “in the power of theater to enhance creativity.” She also admits to doing some dead-on impressions of Nightingale teachers—although, diplomatically, she is keeping quiet on which ones!

ACT II. It wasn’t until she arrived at Wesleyan University and saw a performance of the Bread and Puppet Theater that Sobel learned about the activism involved in puppetry.

“It was a combination of everything I love doing,” she says of the writing, kids, and dolls crucial to a puppeteer’s success. Captivated by “making things come alive,” she named herself a puppeteer, enrolled in a class on Indonesian puppetry, and went to work for the Wesleyan costume shop, teaching herself how to sew. To her delight, the Blue Sky Puppet Theater in Maryland hired her directly out of college, and she honed her skills there over the next two years.

ACT III. Sobel found herself wanting to learn more about this art form, and after much research and the discovery of a little yellow pamphlet in a D.C. library about India’s use of puppetry to teach social issues, and she applied for and won a Fulbright to study just that. India has a rich history of puppetry, particularly using puppet shows for government-subsidized education and to spread awareness about difficult topics like AIDS awareness.

Following a series of miscommunications and unfortunate circumstances (“All of my contacts sort of evaporated once

I arrived!” Sobel recalls), she found herself befriending non-English speaking artists. One, in Ahmedabad, was using puppetry to teach communities about water conservation and, Sobel says, was “very encouraging of me to try things on my own.” Mansingh Zala was another new friend with whom Sobel collaborated on a show about Gandhi called

“A Dream Larger Than Life.” Along her tour of India, Sobel found herself repeatedly revered as some sort of authority, even though she was the one there to learn.

In Delhi, teachers wanted to know how to incorporate puppets to teach literacy. At a community arts center called Janmadhyam, founded by a woman with a disabled daughter, Sobel was enlisted to teach a daily workshop for a month. After seeing the slums and getting to know the children there, Sobel morphed the workshop into a drama therapy program in which the girls performed skits that let them share the conflict in their lives (including performances about alcoholic fathers and beatings). Sobel’s penultimate Indian experience was appearing on a primetime television show on New Delhi TV that ran right after the news and spoofed the headlines. Her time on the show apparently lives on, “because I was the first—and still the only—woman

who could manage the heavy puppets and operate the head as well as the hands,” Sobel boasts.

ACT IV. In 2005, Sobel founded her own company, Talking Hands Theatre. Almost everything she performs is her own creation: the music, the puppets, the plays—and the voices, of course. Each performance involves a character who learns something over the course of the show (like a princess who

trusts herself and manages, despite her sheltered life, to escape pirates). One of her shows, about nutrition, is so complex that she enlists three other puppeteers to put it on. While there’s a message in these shows, they always feel like entertainment.

Sobel just completed her master’s degree in Educational Theater at New York University and has since relocated to a house in the country near Amherst, Massachusetts. This is her new base of operations as she restarts her business

and tours all over New England, bringing her theatrical lessons to a new set of lucky kids.

For more information on Anna and her puppetry, visit www.puppetree.com.

Puppet MasterAnna Sobel ’97 has travelled extensively, using puppets to share positive messages with children around the world.

Sobel found herselfrepeatedly revered as some sort of authority, even though she was the one there to learn.


by Alissa Kinney

Heidi Kasevich, head of the History Department at Nightingale, was attending an Oxbridge program in Paris several years ago when she met Jim Basker. As a professor at Columbia University and president of Oxbridge Academic Programs (which offers professional development opportunities for teachers and summer courses for high school students), Basker is a well-respected educator. But he is also author of several texts on slavery and abolition, directed the acclaimed 2004 exhibition on Alexander Hamilton at the New-York Historical Society, and is president of the renowned Gilbert Lehrman Institute of American History—Basker’s passion for history mirrored Kasevich’s own. So after returning to New York, the pair stayed in touch and began reviving an important bond between Nightingale and Gilder Lehrman—the rest, as they say, is history.

Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman founded their eponymous institute in 1994. Both were businessmen with a passion for American history, and both had built up impressive collections of historical documents that they then donated to the newly formed institute to put to pedagogical use. (The Gilder Lehrman collection is now one of the greatest private collections of documents relating to American History, including over 90,000 primary sources from 1493 to the present.) Gilder was a Nightingale parent who saw his two daughters—Peggy ’74 and Britt-Louise ’79—graduate from the blue doors, so as the institute developed, he arranged for well-regarded historians to speak at Nightingale assemblies. In 2002, Mr. Gilder himself came to speak to Upper School

students, sharing with them some of the institute’s primary documents, which he considered the most crucial tools to learning history.

Nightingale’s History Department has long shared this philosophy, embedding the study and analysis of primary documents into the curriculum at a level not seen in many high schools. According to Associate Head of School Kitty Gordan, “With primary documents, you have live models that bring history alive and encourage the girls to make connections between the world we live in and the world we come from. This kind of educational approach goes a long way in terms of de-bunking the myth that historians are fussy, old-fashioned scholars.”

The timing of Kasevich and Basker’s chance meeting was perfect—Basker had wanted to get the institute involved with independent schools again after a period of working solely with public schools, and Kasevich was thrilled to re-establish a partnership with such a leading force in the world of academia.

“Jim is such a visionary,” Kasevich said, “He wants to expose high school students to college professors and college-level material to get them excited about the possibilities of studying history beyond high school. And that’s what we want, too.”

First, Basker and Kasevich began arranging for historians to speak at Nightingale under the auspices of Gilder Lehrman. Our girls have since heard from some of the most acclaimed American historians: Eric Foner, an influential historian and leading authority on Reconstruction; Chris Brown, an exciting

young scholar exploring slavery, abolition, and the early modern British empire; Carol Berkin, an expert on the founding and the American constitution; and Harold Holzer, one of the foremost scholars of Lincoln and co-chairman of the United States Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. Now an annual staple at Nightingale, these inspiring lectures provide an invaluable resource to our young historians.

Next, Nightingale teachers re-entered the fold of the Gilder Lehrman summer seminars, with history department veteran Alan Bikk attending a course last summer with esteemed Civil War scholar Eric Foner. As Bikk later wrote in the Nightingale Faculty Newsletter, the experience of

“sitting with giants” of the history world was a profound one. A spot is now reserved for a Nightingale faculty member each summer, and in 2010, history teacher and Head of Upper School Paul Burke participated in a seminar on New York City history with noted scholar and Columbia professor Kenneth Jackson. “Teachers are the lifeblood of the system,” said Basker. “When we reach out and support a teacher, they in turn, reach out and support their students. If they teach for 10 to 20 years, this goes on and we energize millions of students to be interested in American history.”

The partnership has taken on a new dimension, as well, opening up opportunities for select Nightingale students who show a serious interest in the study of history. In the winter of 2009, Basker mentioned to Kasevich that he was considering allowing high school students to apply for summer internships at Gilder Lehrman, prestigious positions that

had previously been reserved only for college students—or, more often, post-graduates.

One of the first students to take advantage of this internship opportunity was Hailey Huddleston ’11. “I loved it,” Huddleston said of her experience at Gilder Lehrman. “The people there were wonderful and helped me throughout my first real work experience. I got to learn and do a lot; there were only two other interns—one was in college and one had just graduated from college.” Huddleston’s time was so successful that she was invited to continue her work that fall.

“I believe in the capabilities of high school students,” Basker says, echoing institute founder Richard Gilder.

“Experiential learning is so important, and Nightingale realizes this. There is no need for high school students to wait until college for inspiring academic experiences.”

Thanks to this fast-growing relationship between Nightingale and Gilder Lehrman, Associate Head of School Gordan believes that the possibilities remain endless.

“This is a chance to bridge the gap between the secondary classroom and college. The resources from Gilder Lehrman also become part of our history faculty’s professional development toolkit. We have begun to take American history for granted, but with Gilder Lehrman as an educational partner, we can reinforce the study of American history.” These are the kind of opportunities that come through pursuing an education in New York City—and doing it as a Nightingale girl.

Harold Holzer, a noted Lincoln scholar who came to Nightingale through the Gilder Lehrman Institute, speaks to Nightingale students after his lecture on January 8, 2010.

the MakingHistory in

Nightingale is partnering with the Gilder Lehrman Institute to bring a new level of historical connection into the classroom.

10 THE BLUE DOORS THE BLUE DOORS 11

By Jeff Kearney

Children should begin by learning to decline nouns and conjugate verbs. Only then can they grasp what follows.

The teacher should have no faults himself, nor should he allow his pupils to have any. —Quintilian, Latin Teacher (A.D. 95)

For a good part of the 20th century, many American students began ancient languages with a volume called First Year Latin. The author was Charles Jenney, a teacher for 54 years at Belmont Hill School near Boston. Jenney’s book was first published in 1954 by the semi-appetizing house of Allyn and Bacon as a revision of a text from 1904. The title (like those of its sequels: Second Year Latin, Third Year Latin, and Fourth Year Latin) promised a Spartan style that the book surely delivered. There was no color, no three-dimensional cutaways, and apart from a close-up of a very well-used dagger, few images at all. Yet what it lacked in flash, it made up for in pluck. The practice sentences spoke loudly and with the sort of American bluster that made de Tocqueville cringe: We shall be unhappy if there is not a large dinner tomorrow. The weapons of the bold lieutenant are heavy. We freed the small towns with our swords. Even the grammar exercises pushed their own imperialistic agendas: We shall seize; you (pl.) will suffer. Should a student make it through this gauntlet, a Roman tragic mask would meet her on the last page.

The caption read, Rident stolidi verba Latina. Only fools laugh at Latin.

New editions dulled the book’s blade over time. In 1979, models of the Colosseum replaced some of the weapons. Color mosaics from Pompeii cast an unfamiliar orange glow over the relative pronoun. The second conjugation, at last after 3,000 years, had its name in lights. If that were not enough, Ben-Hur drove a team of white horses over the cover. Yet the most telling innovation came at the beginning of the text. Atop page one, even before the table of contents, students found the words WHY STUDY LATIN? in peacock blue. To the ninth-grader asking herself the same question, Mr. Jenney seemed more than the average Latin teacher or textbook writer. He was a clairvoyant. In retrospect, it seems typical of his direct approach to meet such matters head-on. His tone is a cross between that of a guidance counselor and Army recruiter. He is supportive, if somewhat formal:

We realize that it is very important to today’s students to select school subjects that will have relevance and meaning for their future. Therefore, we wish to compliment you on your choice of Latin. It is a choice you will never regret.

Having eased the prospective student’s heart and stiffened her resolve, Jenney grows solemn. Superior learning, he goes on to say, has its responsibilities. It was a message of sacrifice,

Latin has been part of Nightingale’s core curriculum since our inception. Here, classics teacher Jeff Kearney addresses whether Latin has a place in modern education.

Latin?Why Study

familiar to those who had seen President Carter address the energy crisis in a sweater. Yet the message had to it a prophetic wisdom as well. Jenney’s younger students might have pictured Obi Wan Kenobi speaking into Luke Skywalker’s ear before battle. The audio version would have featured Alec Guinness’s voice:

It is true that it is no easy task to learn the material presented in this book. There is no short cut to mastering the forms and syntax of the Latin language. Do not have any qualms, however, about what you are about to do. The rewards that you will reap from this undertaking will benefit you the rest of your life and it will be well worth the effort you put into it now.

In other words, Use the Force. Short of sounding defensive, Jenney anticipates every objection one might throw at the language. To the charge that Latin is impractical, he assures the reader that there is no better way to prepare for a career than by learning how to learn. Latin, he suggests, trains the memory, increases “word power,” and develops reasoning and reading skills. To the charge that Latin is a language of the past, he argues that the opposite is true. As a “perfect specimen language” with a predictable syntax, Latin helps to ease the acquisition not only of the derivative (or Romance) languages, but of any tongue, whether inflected or not. His thinking is prescient here, especially in his recognition that

due to advances in transportation and technology “the world is becoming smaller and smaller,” thus demanding a more open communication. To Jenney, Latin offered an ancient solution to a new challenge.

When asked about the value of studying Latin today, one has to begin where Jenney left off. The author, after all, could not have foreseen how far and how fast the technology would come. My take, therefore, is a little different. Whereas he presented Latin (correctly, as ironic it may sound) as a vehicle to the future, I see it also as a way of repairing what has been damaged on that ride. Latin probably cannot bring about the comity of nations or solve every academic problem. Yet it is, I would propose, an antidote to some of the worst effects of the information age.

We often hear that every new technology brings with it a corresponding loss. This loss extends beyond the quaint and outdated machines that fill the basement. No one, for example, would argue that a message is better relayed by a telegram or that the radio is the best way to experience a rocket launch. What we can notice, however, is a shift in habits or manners that accompany the innovation. The most obvious example may be the way in which cell phones have changed how we view (and hear) a “private” conversation. Once an activity so personal as to require a soundproof booth, a phone call now belongs to the open air, fettered by neither cord nor any of the self-consciousness that once had surrounded it. So while the phone itself may now seem irreplaceable, the


behavior it has spawned seems less worth keeping. Perhaps most challenging for teachers, the digital age has

come with an expectation of speed. Even the most patient adult, let alone child, will chafe at a pause between screens. The visual reminder of the pause will vary—sometimes it is a clock; other times a grim, almost fateful hourglass—but the message is the same: your life is wasting away. One might argue that the attention span of children has never been very long to begin with, as evidenced by the unpopularity of Henry James for Tweens or middle school bridge teams. After all, Sextus, the Roman boy (fluent in Latin) who blazes a trail of terror through Ecce Romani, hurting feelings and cracking statues, is diagnosed as early as chapter three: he is temerarius; rash or impatient. Still, technology has only exacerbated the problem for us, and one could only imagine the havoc Sextus might have wrought with an iPhone.

If technology has reduced waiting to an inconvenience or even a curse, Latin may yet restore it to a virtue. The arrangement of the words, or syntax, in a Latin sentence will have it no other way. Consider this example:

Sextus avem in horto Davi videt.Even after we have decoded the

ends of the words, or inflections, and arrived at their functions—Sextus being the subject, avem the direct object, in horto a prepositional phrase, Davi the possessor—we still do not know what the boy is doing to that poor bird. All we can glean, reading from left to right, is that somewhere in Davus’s garden, Sextus is acting and a bird is acted upon. Because Latin tends to put the verb in the final position, we have to hold that other information in suspense. In other words, we have no choice but to wait. Only when we arrive at the end of the sentence do we realize, and with some relief, that Sextus merely sees the bird. It will fly again.

Because Roman authors like Cicero or Vergil will place a dozen or more words between Sextus and videt, a student grows gradually accustomed to breaking a long sentence into discrete parts, only to reassemble them upon meeting the verb. In the process, every grain of that hourglass of “lost” time has a purpose. In other words, when reading Latin, the pause does not show idleness or boredom, but progress.

Every Latin teacher wonders if this sort of patience might escape the schoolhouse and solve other problems as well. If everyone read Latin, for example, would we be more likely to let someone else finish a sentence? Does the Latin-educated child chew her food more completely before swallowing? Will a bike messenger steeped in Horace actually stop at the light? It all seems possible.

What is even more certain is that training in Latin encourages a deliberate way of thinking. This makes for more careful readers and writers. In fact, one can see how the fundamentals of Latin grammar overlap with the sacred commandments of usage and composition in Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. Latin, for one, has no definite or indefinite articles (#17: Omit needless words). Latin often employs multiple subordinate clauses (#6: Do not break sentences in two). Latin, especially Cicero’s, tends to use parallel constructions (#19: Express coordinate ideas in similar form). Latin, as illustrated above, often delays the verb (#22: Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end). While

there are some noteworthy exceptions (#14: Use the active voice), the comparison reveals a similar way of thinking about language. Therefore, when we remind students that every Latin word has to serve a distinct purpose, we only echo William Strunk’s famous rule about clarity:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

E.B. White, Strunk’s student at Cornell and subsequent co-author, writes that his old teacher would repeat the shorter principles like #17 three times, just to be safe. The future of English was at stake and he was not about to take any chances. Like Charles Jenney or any good teacher, Strunk was part missionary, part preservationist.

Jenney’s own famous text was revised again in 1990, replete with glossy photographs of everything from vegetable gardens to space heaters that survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The book showed a new concern for student opinion. Alongside a picture of a Roman oven, a caption asks, improbably, Where do most American families get their bread? Compare a brazier like this one to a microwave. Even the methodology was adjusted somewhat to suit the reading-centered (and more effective) approach like that we use in Ecce Romani. Having

perhaps frightened too many children of the 1980s, the tragic mask was pulled from the back of the glossary, along with some of the rough-and-tumble language that surrounded it.

The soul of the book remained intact. Between the columns and rose borders, Jenney’s explanations were as clear as they had been in 1954. Although it no longer occupied the dire position that it did in the 1979 edition, WHY STUDY LATIN? still appeared in an opening section. It retained little of the solemnity of that first version, with all of its underlying anxiety about the future. Instead, there is a cheerful narrative about a Latin club and all of the fun they plan to have while using the book. The emphasis is squarely on the present, which makes sense. Latin, like any subject in school, can meet students where they are and have a bearing on their current lives. While it is tempting to see this as a surrender to lighter academic demands or even some desperate attempt to curry favor with students, this would miss the point. Every generation finds its own reasons to learn Latin or Jane Austen or geometric proofs that are unique to its own time.

If no editor can revise the rigor out of the Romans’ language, it is because Latin is more than a collection of old words read in reverse order. It is a habit of mind. As with any good habit, it will at first run counter to faster or easier means. Practiced enough, it will arise by instinct, when forming an argument or writing a paper or plotting a graph. As the world grows more frenetic, and information flies our way at least as fast as that bird from Davus’s garden, Latin’s logic will be one defense against over-saturation. It will remind us, between screens or not, to stop for a moment and think.

Latin probably cannotbring about the comity of nations or solve every academic problem. Yet it is an antidote to some of the worst effects of the modern age.

Sofia Martinez ’22, assisted by her mother Awilda, tells her classmates about her family as part of the Lower School’s celebration of family heritage.


Eruption by MoonlightAfter Pierre-Jacques Volaire (1729-1792) By BrAdLey wHITeHurST

Turning their backs to us, flecked silhouettesOf contrapposto’d dandies scan the streambedIncised by fluent fire, brushed rivulets And burbling plumes that light the night sky flame-redBeyond the Bay of Naples and out to sea.With hound and walking sticks, they take their well-bred Ease, provide perspective, scale: a frieze-Like pantomime the artist sketched while perchingOn tufa, his easel warming by degrees Like timber propped by an open hearth. SearchingThe growing conflagration drawn from nature,Jostled by aftershocks—the poised brush lurching, Daubing vermilion, silver moon—he capturedCatastrophe. In mid-convulsion it staysJust where we want it: spectacular, denatured Decoration hanging to modest praiseThese days at Maisons-Laffitte, where a scented docentGuides VIPs on junkets through the maze Of communicating rooms to catch the giantFuming, muttering tectonic threats.Yet the stared-at canvas gives up nothing, defiant In its silence. One almost could forgetThe seismic shift outside the snug chateau,The nightly sirens speeding to the fault- Line of burning cars, Clichy-sous-Bois aglow. (Paris, October–November 2005)

Copyright the Sewanee Theological Review, Christmas 2009.

Mr. Whitehurst is a member of the English Department and has earned degrees from the College of William and Mary, Georgetown University, and the Bread Loaf School of English. “Eruption by Moonlight” is the eponymous piece from his first collection of poetry.

A special section featuring the voices and visions of students, faculty, and alumnae of the Nightingale-Bamford School


GuiltBy SeGACy rOBerTS ‘10

I feel a littleguilty

sometimes.

I feel guilty for1. Drinking right out of the carton and

2. Eating your food when you’re not looking and3. Thinking that I’m better than you

Actually,I kind of feel ashamed for writing about my guilt.

Published guilt is the worst.It’s like asking people to judge your most insignificant woes and brand you

as that dirty word:Selfish

Or better yet:Intolerable

I feel sorry for not being more available to people. And by people, I don’t mean individuals. I mean the human population. There’s something about

them that makes me just want to swallow up inside.

Sometimes, I feel guilty for pretending to be asleep when you come into my room,

And ignoring your IMs because I’m away,And putting my phone on silent (always) so I can pretend I’m not there,

Or turning up my music really loud so I can’t hear you singing.

I like strangers.They see you and they don’t see you.

To them, you are unnoticed when present and missed when gone.

Especially the ones on the trainBecause sometime between Borough Hall and Fulton Street

Everybody’s sulking.

I feel guilty becauseMore than anything elseI really want to be alone.

Ms. Roberts wrote “Guilt” as part of her senior independent study project, for which she wrote a collection of poetry evocative of different authors.

The Irresistible Henry HouseBy LISA GruNwALd AdLer ‘77, P’10

By the time Henry House was four months old, a copy of his picture was being carried in the pocketbooks of seven different women, each of whom called him her son.

The photograph showed Henry on the day he arrived at Wilton College in 1946. He was lying naked in his crib, his backside bare and sassy, his hair already shiny and dark, and his grin already firmly in place as he pulled up on his chubby hands and turned back toward the sound of his name.

Henry House was a practice baby, an orphan supplied by the local home for the purpose of teaching college women how to be proper mothers. For more than two decades, since the early 1920s, colleges across the country had offered home economics programs featuring practice kitchens, practice houses, and, sometimes, practice babies. Henry was the tenth such baby to come to the Wilton practice house. Like the other so-called House babies before him, he was expected to stay for two years and be tended to in week-long shifts by a half dozen practice mothers. In earnest, attentive rotations, they would live and sleep beside him as they learned the science of child rearing—feeding and diapering, soothing and playing—until it was time to pass him on to the next devoted trainee.

Raised, as a consequence, not with a pack of orphans by a single matron but as a single orphan by a pack of mothers, Henry House started life in a fragrant, dust-free, fractured world, where love and disappointment were both excessive and intertwined.

* * *

In 1946, the campus of Wilton College sat like a misplaced postage

stamp in the upper-left-hand corner of the mostly flat, still mostly rural Pennsylvania rectangle. Established in 1880, the college was one of the oldest in the country created solely for the education of women, and it drew, in nearly equal numbers, girls from the nearby farms and girls from the distant towns and girls from the glittering, ambitious East. If some arrived with the thought that home economics would offer an easy path, they had only to enter the practice house to be disabused of this notion.

Martha Gaines ran the program with an iron fist and a hidden heart, living full-time in the practice house while the undergraduates came and went. Martha considered the building hers, the students hers, the program hers. In 1926, she had been reassigned from her original post as a textiles instructor to design and run the practice baby program, and she had been in charge since the arrival of the very first House infant. Martha had overseen all the House babies since then, the single exception being during the previous year, when she had been urged (the gossip, she knew, said forced) to take a leave of absence. On this sharp, brisk autumn morning, with a new school year, a new group of mothers, and a new baby before her, Martha had never felt a deeper need to be in command.

Henry was in her arms. He was wearing bright red cotton pajamas and was wrapped, budlike, in a pale green cotton blanket. The date of his birth—June 12, 1946—had been written on a piece of orphanage


stationery and fixed to his blanket with a large diaper pin. The orphans always arrived with numbers and, thanks to Martha’s one streak of whimsy, stayed on with cutely alliterative names: Helen House, then Harold House, then Hannah, Hope, Heloise, Harvey, Holly, Hugh, and Harriet. Only when they were adopted—which they invariably were, quite eagerly, as the prized products of modern child-rearing techniques—would they finally be given real names.

At the door of the practice house, Martha now exhaled a homecoming sigh, then expertly shifted the baby onto her left arm to open the door with her right.

“Welcome home, Henry,” she whispered, stepping into the entranceway and turning on the light.

Then she kissed one of the baby’s tiny, still-clenched hands—not his face, of course, for she rarely deviated from the rules she imposed on her student mothers, and one of those rules was not to indulge in undue physical affection. (“MOTHER MUST NOT BEGIN WITH S” was the admonition that Martha had stitched as a sampler years before.) Now she tucked Henry’s fist back under the blanket and stepped into the nursery. It was ten-thirty on a Monday morning, and the girls weren’t scheduled to come until eleven, and that would give Martha barely enough time.

Henry looked at her, his eyes just mature enough to focus on hers. Martha shrugged off her tweed jacket, keeping the baby snugly against her chest and inhaling the talcum-y smell of his neck.

There had been times, in her previous year of exile, when Martha had not been sure she’d ever get to hold a House baby again. Relief and the lingering loneliness of her time away now galvanized her. With Henry up on her shoulder, she all but spun around the room, reaching for her tools: a fresh journal, a sharp pencil, a measuring tape, a diaper. As she gathered the things, she hummed the song that Bing Crosby had been crooning since the end of the war:

Kiss me once, then kiss me twice Then kiss me once again It’s been a long, long time.

* * *

The nursery had remained largely unchanged in the year of Martha’s absence. The walls were still the palest shade of green, with crisp white wainscoting that hemmed them in and kept them from seeming completely institutional. The changing table and a small dresser flanked the left-hand wall. A rocking chair and an oak side table sat beside the far window. A faded Oriental covered most of the dark wooden floor.

In general, the room was—like Martha herself—not altogether cold but not particularly inviting. Functional described them both. At forty-eight, Martha was no longer confident, slim, or remotely happy enough to be what most people would consider attractive. In recent years, her face had become doughy and less defined, as if the lines of her features were starting to smudge. Her body, often plump, had become heavyset, and she had taken to wearing, along with her tailored suits, a series of eccentrically colorful silk scarves that were meant to distract attention from the rest of her.

Today Martha’s scarf was bright turquoise and orange, and as she laid Henry on the changing table, he seemed transfixed by its pattern. Staring, he didn’t protest as she unwrapped his green blanket and, ribbon by ribbon, undid his red pajamas. Only then—from the cold and the shock of not being swaddled—did he begin to yell and squirm. Resolutely, Martha ignored his cries and unfastened his diaper pin. “You’re a strong one,” she said to him, unfolding her tape measure.

She measured the circumference of Henry’s head, then his height, his hands, and his feet. She noted the color of his skin, his eyes, his hair. She noticed and recorded a small extra flap of skin on his right ear, like the ear tags that came on those German teddy bears that had been so popular before the war.

“What’s that doing there?” she asked Henry, while he kept on bellowing. He was only fourteen weeks old, and Martha usually preferred the

practice babies to be five or six months when she got them. Irena Stahl at the orphanage, however, had been unusually firm in insisting that Henry was the healthiest candidate, and Martha—anxious to resume her duties—had been in no mood to argue, and certainly not to wait.

She turned Henry over on his belly and scrutinized his skin, running one large hand across the tiny span of his shoulder blades, no wider than an octave. She studied the small of his back, his buttocks, checking for imperfections, marveling at their absence.

She knew that the girls would be coming soon, and that she should dress the baby, and prepare him, and prepare herself as well, but for this one moment, he was hers, entirely hers, and all of his magnificent future, and his already insignificant past, fit grandly within the span of her hand. She scooped him up, and, despite herself, she kissed him firmly on the cheek.

For a moment, their eyes met again, and Martha felt a surge of longing. Furtively, she looked around the empty room. “Now you know,” she whispered to Henry. “I think I’m going to love you,” she said. “Don’t tell a soul.”

Many American universities used real “practice babies” for their home economics students in the middle part of the 20th century. The above text is excerpted from The Irresistible Henry House, Ms. Grunwald’s sixth novel, which explores the life of one of these practice babies. Ms. Grunwald is the author of Whatever Makes You Happy, The Theory of Everything, and Summer, and was co-editor, with Stephen J. Adler, of the bestselling nonfiction book Letters of the Century.


The HedgesBy CHrISTINe SCHuTT

The woman who had just been identified as attached to Dick Hedge looked pained by the clotted, green sound of her little boy’s breathing, an unwell honk that did not blend in with the sashaying plants and beachy-wet breeze of the island. “Jonathan,” she said, and she spoke into the little boy’s ear and made sounds to soothe him, though he would not be soothed. The little boy twisted in her arms to be released. He leaned as far back and away from her as he could, which the mother said hurt.

“Don’t!” she said. “I can’t hold you. Jonathan!” She said, “Will you please hold still?” Luckily for her, she had a husband. Dick Hedge helped his wife into the waiting golf cart, then took his place on the other side of Jonathan who, surprised or tired, sat very still for the ride.

Probably, they did not want to miss the sunset, for they were not long in their cabana. Of course, Lolly Hedge had seen plenty of these sunsets before; she had been to many islands actually. Aruba, Curacao, St. John, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Little Cayman. Her uncle owned a lot of land in Little Cayman, so the vacation there had been the best trip of them all; like visiting the family compound, everything was free. The best trip, yes.

“Except for this one,” she said in an obligatory voice or a sad voice or a tired voice—it was hard for anyone listening in to tell. The voice—small, but husky—how to describe it? Lolly’s voice was Lolly’s most distinguished feature. The woman in front of her smiled, bemused (no doubt by the voice) and told Lolly that the black beans were very piquant and that she, Lolly, should try them. Dick stood just behind his wife holding Jonathan and explaining the food to the boy although the difference between pineapple and mango did not seem to interest Jonathan. Besides, the poor little chap was on this pink medicine, this viscid antibiotic that he often gagged on and which left him sleepy and without an appetite.

“Jonathan has been sick for weeks,” Lolly said to the woman in front of her. “One of the reasons we decided to come here was to get well.”

Lolly was right about the medicine’s irritating side effects; Jonathan fussed at dinner and could only be mollified with apple juice, which he drank in a sore slump in the corner of a basket seat. Sometimes Jonathan wagged the bottle by the nipple held between his teeth. He watched his father eat, but whenever he looked at his mother, he whimpered.

“Jonathan,” she said, sounding exhausted again or sad. “Jonathan, please. Let Mommy be.”

The Hedges did not stay for dessert. By then, the sun had set, and the night sky’s show was blinking on quickly. A greater darkness amid the foliage squeaked notes, very pretty. In his father’s arms again, Jonathan cried and leaned out toward his mother to carry him, but the way was too steep. Lolly did not look at the boy, and she did not speak to him. His father, carrying him, was silent while Jonathan cried against Dick’s shoulder and looked back at his trailing mother and never once looked to the nest of cabanas where they were going up and up a hillside of jutting verandas in thin shrubbery.

Lolly must have cribbed the boy in pillows on the bed and slept to one side of him because the next morning Dick was at the front desk arranging for the rental of a crib; there were no other children in sight, and the hotel was not prepared for them.

“At the beach,” the concierge said. “Everybody.” Yes, yes, yes, Dick had a wife already there. She was watching from

under the palms as her little boy threw sand. Sand gritted his mouth and his bubbly nose. Even the juice in his bottle looked silted. “I give up,” Lolly said to her husband, but her husband walked right past her toward Jonathan, making noises of surprise to see him. Dick dropped on his knees in front of the boy and used the long hem of his shirt to clean Jonathan’s face, saying, “Hold still,” but the boy kept tossing his head until it hurt Jonathan what his father was doing, and he cried.

“Oh, God!” the parents sighed to see Jonathan crab his way to the water. “Oh, God.” This time it was Lolly speaking. “Damnit, Dick—” and she

made as if to lift herself out of the web chair as Dick hopped over the already-hot sand toward Jonathan.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch,” he clowned, and when he caught up to Jonathan he urged the little boy toward the water, but Jonathan did not want to get wet now and held back and was frightened. “I’m going,” his father said; nevertheless, when he let go of Jonathan’s hand, the little boy cried out, “No!” His voice carried, or so it seemed to his mother as she looked down the beach to where the other early risers lay, and Lolly thought she saw them grimace in her direction. “Dick,” she called, “carry him.”

Dick reacted slowly and calmly or it might have been that he was simply tired, but he did not rush. He tossed his shirt in the direction of his wife and picked up the crying child and carried him into the water, taking care to keep Jonathan out of the water, putting his own wet hands on the boy’s knees and moving his mouth against the boy’s face and trying, it seemed, very patiently trying, to get the boy used to it, but Jonathan kept whimpering and holding out his arms for his mother, so Dick said, “All right,” and he plunged with the boy into the unfurling wave. He peddled backwards into the foam. “Oh!” Anyone of them said that. “Oh!” Dick was laughing and his wife was scolding from afar, “What are you. . .” and the little boy was crying and coughing up water.

“It’s too cold, Dick!” Lolly stood in the water now with her arms outstretched. “Give him to me.” But Dick kept hold of the little boy and bobbed and laughed and seemed smoothly confident he could jolly his son into ease. Lolly, at the shore, kept calling, “Mommy’s going to get you,” and when she did at last take hold of Jonathan, the small cage of bones that was his chest heaved, so that his mother held him closely and let the boy use her as a bib to rub himself warm against and to clean his face of slaver.

“Someone will be tired,” Lolly said as they walked off the beach, but in the end Jonathan’s vexations did not make him tired. No mid-morning nap for this boy and not much of a nap after lunch. Usually the medicine made him sleepy, but on their first day at the resort Jonathan stood in the rickity crib the management had found for the family and shook its bars. That was how Lolly described the rout of naptime. She had tried to go on reading on the terrace. She did not look behind her at the swelling curtains; she did not respond to the tuneless xylophone of his bottle banged against the crib slats. Let him rattle, let him cry. Who was there near enough to hear him? They were farther up the mountain in a suite more exclusively pitched. Of course they had paid more. But who wanted to know how much more? They didn’t have the most expensive. They didn’t have the version with the private lap pool. But the cost of things did not interest Lolly. What she wanted to know was how long did motherhood last? After the noisy beginning of his nap, Jonathan had plumped down


Sarah Mellon ’10

onto the mattress. He was making little bubble sounds, and it seemed he was falling asleep, so. So? What was it that made him stand up and cry?

But that was why they were here now, so early, at the pool. The familiar woman from last night’s dinner said oh, yes, indeed, she could certainly understand, the boy was. . . well, just look at the boy, so alive, the way he reached for his mother!

Lolly said to the boy, “Daddy will take you.” Sadly, the pool was not as blue as it was in the brochures. On her

uncle’s island the water was so bright Lolly didn’t dare look at it directly. “Dick,” she called out to her husband, “don’t you want sunglasses?” Dick and Jonathan were sitting on the steps into the pool; no one was

swimming. Lolly, just behind them on a long chair, was getting sleepy. The whiteness of things—the canvas umbrellas and cabanas, the pool’s paved edge—stunned the plants still. The boy and his father were silent. The boy sat in water to his waist and floated his arm on the surface of the water; the father’s face was water in a glass, without expression. He said nothing to Lolly’s voice, so his wife shut her eyes and woke alone in the shade.

When had they left? “A long time ago,” the nearest guest said.Itchy, sunburned—Lolly walked unsteadily toward the white glare

beyond the palm trees, but when she saw Dick, she turned back for her room before he saw her.

(Later, after the accident, a guest remembered seeing Lolly walking up the hill from the beach. She was crying. She was crying and unsteady and tripped on a step. The guest said he would have helped but that Lolly was too far away from him, and she was in a hurry and didn’t seem to want help. The way her body swiped past staff and guests, he could see her disdain for them.

“The young woman could be supercilious,” said the woman who swam with Lolly some mornings.)

Jonathan, on the beach, gouged the sand with a shovel he held like a lance. His father fell asleep. No one saw the little boy walk off, although even Lolly claimed she heard him, and knew he was lost. What crying!

“But I am,” Lolly said. “We are,” she insisted. She was standing in the buffet line at dinner. Her pert dress had bowtied, string straps and matched the flowers on her sandals. Washed hair, lipstick. Her pale skin was mesmeric and slick under the light of netted globes. Jonathan was not with them. He had been found, bathed, pajammed; he was asleep. “Lucky us,” Lolly said, and then the Hedges ate in silence.

Sometime in the night when the tree frogs had ceased to sing, a cry, followed by another, sounded on the hillside. It might have been a sound of pleasure or pained pleasure or something else; the cry was ambiguous. One of the guests thought it might have been the little boy, the only little boy—the only child—at the resort, but the little boy seemed better the next morning. He could walk; no one carried him into the breakfast room. Jonathan held his mother’s hand, and he was subdued, even serene at the table. He sucked on a wedge of toast.

Dick and Lolly looked tired, but after breakfast they took off in a taxi to tour the island. They returned hours later, just after noon. Lolly hoisted

Continued on page 37


Becky Tickaram ’11 Jennifer Lu ‘10


Charlotte Michaelcheck ’11

Charlotte Michaelcheck ’11


Becky Tickaram ’11 Lucie Florio ’10


Beatrice Zemann ’11 Beatrice Zemann ’11

32 THE BLUE DOORS THE BLUE DOORS 33Lucia Perez ’10


Renee Ericson ’10

Hailey Huddleston ‘11


Mirae Moon ‘11

Marie Nikolova ’10

38 THE BLUE DOORS THE BLUE DOORS 3936 THE BLUE DOORS

Idy Akpan ’11

herself from the taxi and walked off with her arms held out; she smelled of vomit. She walked quickly to her cabana. No lunch, no tea, no cocktail sunset for her—not even dinner.

“I hope your wife is not unwell,” from someone who noticed Dick alone with Jonathan at a dark corner table. Dick said, no, Lolly was asleep, a long day with the baby. Dick said that if they were at home Jonathan would be in bed.

And where was home?In the middle of the country. Nothing to be embarrassed about, the man said and looked on as Dick

worried the boy’s fingers apart to get hold of something speared and plastic. Jonathan fought for it, but once it was lost, he looked around and was distracted, expectant, hopeful as a dog for the next toy, and he got it: a slice of orange from Father’s drink to suck on.

Again, in the night, there was a noise, but this time it did sound like a baby.

Lolly was a princess by her own admission; the noisiness of snowscapes, of snow falling or newly fallen, gave her headaches, so that island vacations were best. This was Jonathan’s first such vacation, but Lolly confessed she had not considered the meaninglessness of travel for a two-year old. Soft fruit with Cheerios was breakfast anywhere for Jonathan, and he smeared banana into his mouth and gooed his arms and the bib of his shirt. Cereal stuck to him as it would to anything that oozed, and Lolly said she did not want to get near the boy. “Stay away from me,” she said in a serious voice, but she smiled at the boy, so it seemed she was joking, and he reached for her again and she screamed. Hardly what had been heard on the hillside last night. Last night’s screams had sounded astonished.

Did Lolly like her baby? Lolly often fell asleep on the job so that whoever was still awake had to

care for the little boy, but where was he, Jonathan?Asleep, asleep. After that day on the beach when the boy wandered away and discovered

he liked the water, for a time at least liked it, on his own, after that day when the boy could have drowned, Dick and Lolly kept Jonathan on the terrace that trembled in the light through the split-leaf fans and flapping foliage. Jonathan played on the terrace with a local girl who saw to it that he was fed.

So Jonathan had a local nanny. How else to explain how blissfully empty-handed Lolly was. “Look at me,” and she shut her eyes mid-sentence and fell asleep on the beach.

When she woke, she waved at her husband. “Good luck chasing fish!” she called out to him. Dick was on the ocean for so long—all afternoon—that Lolly went to the dock in search of him, not worried, but curious: and there he was on the boat. There was Dick on the big and tipsy vessel that slowed to the dock. They did not have a camera between them, but the resort took a picture of Dick as he stood next to his fish.

Had Lolly ever heard of a wahoo, for that was what Dick had caught and ordered grilled for dinner.

The dinner could have been photographed, too, but they didn’t have a camera. Lolly had seen this scenery before, and Jonathan was sick. She didn’t want a picture of a sick little boy. No, when Jonathan was well, then they would buy a camera. For now, for Lolly, it was nice, a treat, a real pleasure to sleep in the sun without worry. It was enough. Shells, shell jewelry, decorated mirrors and flower pots and smoky perfumes, coconut


creams and coconut heads and apothecary jars of seaglass and colored sand were so much village junk. She liked to be empty-handed.

Another night Dick sat at dinner alone. “I hope the family is okay,” said the concierge when Dick asked for a

doctor he might call in case. But yes, they were okay. His wife was only tired, and the little boy was happiest eating toast with his mother. The little boy was fine, yes. Dick had nothing more to talk about. He wandered into a daze and ate alone and silently, and after dinner he walked the beach. Dick Hedge, a young man with a tired face, sipping a foamy cocktail. He had another cocktail at the bar and still another when the dancing began. He swivelled in his seat to watch everyone partnered. Later when he wove his way through the dancers, the music was louder but some of his words—don’t. . . why . . . can’t—carried and a dancer looked after him: why was the young man so often alone?

After the second day at the resort they penned the little boy in the terrace of their cabana. Lolly said Jonathan just loved Cecilia. Cecilia was courtesy of the resort. Her mother was on staff. Heavy, brown, robustly pretty, Cecilia looked alert enough for a girl, but she was twelve, so was it any wonder? Cecilia and Jonathan were on the terrace every day. She kept the sliding windows open so he could crawl from the terrace to the bedroom and around the bathroom and into the closets. Most of the cabanas on the hill were not large; the Hedges did not have the version with the pool.

The little boy was restless and one day he climbed onto the bed, then onto the tippy dresser chair, then onto the dresser. Cecilia laughed to tell Lolly how she had found Jonathan on the dresser, bumping against the reflection of himself in the dresser mirror, making faces.

Cecilia said, “He sure look he feel something then.” The next day Lolly reported as much to the woman she called the

Swimmer. Yes, Jonathan was better. Only one more day on the pink medicine, and wouldn’t that be a relief. Then Jonathan might play freely in full sun. Then they could be as a family again. But no more golf! No, Dick would have to squeeze in the holes during naptime, and there would be no more mornings like this one for her. Lolly laughed and the familiar flowered cap nodded back. This woman, the Swimmer, was Lolly’s clock. There before anyone else and swimming back and forth and back and forth, this woman held onto the edge of the pool and tried to kick, but her heavy lower body stayed below. She strained to kick and listened to Lolly.

“That’s my morning,” Lolly said to Dick on the patio at lunch when she was describing the Swimmer. At lunch on the patio Lolly described the Swimmer’s struggle in the water, the small splashes that were kicks. Lolly made comparison between her life and the woman’s swimming, the struggle to break the surface.

“Jesus,” Dick said. He was not in the mood for Lolly’s tireless, tiredly lyrical self-analysis. He was flushed; he had played poorly; he wanted a beer.

“If that’s how you feel,” he said. “My father told me. . .”“Your father, your father . . . give me a break.” “I am finding it hard, Dick.”“Hard? What’s hard, Lolly?” Dick called over the waiter and ordered his

beer. “I know what you could make hard.”

Someone at a nearby table overheard this last remark—or maybe all of the remarks—and coughed.

Lolly loudly pushed away from the table and stood up. “I hate this fucking place,” she said to the cougher, and then she walked off in the direction of the beach.

(Later, after the accident, this squabble on the patio would be remembered by more than one other guest, and it wasn’t the sound of Lolly’s voice this time that made the impression. There were others, not just the cougher, who wondered why these two, so lovely and young and clearly comfortable if not rich, why they, with their pouty, pretty son, were so unhappy.

Why did Lolly frown so much?Why was it Dick drank and drank alone? Was it their little boy? Was it that they did not know what to do with

their little boy? Why had they brought him if they meant to keep him out of sight and in the care of a girl who was clearly unequipped? Why had they selected this resort and not one geared for younger couples and their children?

These were some of the questions some people asked after the accident.)

What was no accident but bad luck was the direction Lolly walked after the incident on the patio because after she left Dick at the table she walked away from the resort, down the strip of beach that came to rock, and then over the rock—she scraped her legs climbing—to the wilder beach growth that scratched. She walked through this brittle, scratchy, wild stuff to the road and continued to walk toward what might become a village. But she never discovered a village because after more than an hour, Dick came up behind her in a taxi. He opened the door and beckoned her inside.

“Please,” he said. “Something has happened.”Lolly knew enough to get in and that was when he told her. If she had walked to the cabana instead of toward nothing, the boy

might have been saved.

But who could blame the girl Cecilia? Cecilia was a girl, and Jonathan was a restless, fully mended little boy. One minute he was in the bedroom watching TV with Cecilia, and the next, he was gone to the terrace. Jonathan, the climber, climbed onto the terrace chair and then onto the table and then over the railing. Jonathan fell over twenty feet to the rock path below the terrace. He fell and on the instant died. He fell over the railing and cracked his skull and many other bones that gave him shape.

(Later, the resort guest chorus ooohed but stayed away and mostly quiet. “We’re on vacation,” the guests said. Only Lolly’s morning friend, the Swimmer, came forward and saw the couple off. The Swimmer, a woman acquainted with loss, saw the Hedges’ sad departure and thought now Lolly Hedge had more than a musical voice; now she had a story, for which in time she might say she was thankful.)

“The Hedges” was originally published in Noon, a literary annual; it is part of a forthcoming collection of stories from longtime English teacher Christine Schutt. Her first novel, Florida, was a finalist for the 2004 National Book Award; All Souls, Ms. Schutt’s latest, was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in fiction.


BlessingBy eLIzABeTH AdLer ‘10

KAREN:I promised I’d bless you one day when I got to know you better,You knew even then what it meant to be blessed by me.And now I am ready, and waiting to bestow my blessingOn a man in a bed in a shack overlooking the sea. I swear at this moment there’s only one thing that I feel for you,I swear at this moment that everything else is gone,I don’t need to own you, to win you, to hurt you, to keep you,This love is alone and awake, undemanding as dawn. Run away from me, love,Run away while you can, while you’re sleeping.Run away from me, love,Run away from the sound of my voice.You are far from me now,You are safe from my magic and stories,Hear my blessing and save yourself, darling,While you have the choice. BJORNVIG:You’re calling me, Karen,I hear you from hereLike the faint, violent tonesOf a far-off parade.I hear brass and horns,I’m alive and afraid,And I know for a fact that you’ve madeYour call.In the back of my mind,I was sure that you’d call me again.Your callKeeps us both intertwined.It’s an ugly, unprincipled thing,Your call. But I’ve heard it beforeAnd I learned long agoI could never ignoreThat impossible sound.You have won again,You will always win,Which you know every time you beginYour call.It besieges my sleep,And it sways everything that I do.

Your call,Though it’s ugly and deep,Draws me closer and closer to you,Your call. KAREN:This was not what I meant,I was ready to bless and release you.This was not what I meant,This was not my intention at all.It’s beyond my control,This pathetic and wonderful power.I have sung you my blessing, my darling,But you heard my call. BOTH:So we can’t run away,Even now, when we’re far from each other.So we might as well give up the struggleAnd let ourselves fall.And I know that this love will be ugly,Unstable,Unbalanced.But it might be a blessing,My darling, my love,After all.

“Blessing” is one of several songs written by Elizabeth Adler ’10 as part of a musical she developed for her senior independent study project. The musical tells the story of Danish author Karen Blixen (who wrote under the name Isak Dinesen) and the platonic relationship she developed with a young poet named Bjornvig.


Feigning ArrangementsBy MArINA rezA ‘09

The things we say when we don’t sleep, the things we don’t say when we are stoned, the things we say when we don’t sleep sound like things we say when we are stoned, our stuttering is silly, we should all be silenced, is it possible to be addicted to itching, to smear peanut butter around your mouth to see if you’re allergic (you know you are), and if not solely allergic to peanut butter, then peanut butter in conjunction with stress and slight physical pressure, or binge until you want to carve your stomach out, so you do enjoy seeing welts like that all over your body spreading and becoming thick chunks of pink raised skin, do you like being the sick sick girl who everyone handles with a stick, scrub your face until it’s hurting and red and raw and full of potential, do you arrive fifteen minutes late regardless of when you arise (today was the day you realized that being late matters), it matters, it matters, it matters that you take your coffee with soy milk though ideally you would have skim, you are gaining weight without notice, your jeans tore a little and then you tore it all, do you see your wide face in your peripheral vision now because that is how you know, you know, you know to grab the buffalo chicken salad because you figure it’s good no bread no croutons; you throw out the two tubs of blue cheese dressing, think of finding a spot to sit where no one usually sits as to initiate a new place for sitting to tell others that it is indeed OK to sit there and read a little, open your shades because you haven’t in a while and it feels good being in the public eye without being in the public eye, keep changing positions as you sit in that humpback posture, it’s hard to sit in a straight position that burns ten percent more calories, do you carefully contrive your seating position, then find yourself staring at others in their carefully contrived position as you adjust in your own?, and then think that it is hard to be the observer when you have so much to say?

* * *

I consecrate two minutes to thinking about The New York Times; I consecrate no minutes to reading it. I imagine the crunchy turn of the front page of the Arts section, I imagine the four or five in-your-face stories and delicious pixels on A1 and think about how I will later log onto www.nytimes.com and click through the “Pictures of the Day” slideshow and consecrate two seconds to thinking about each one as I look more at the technique and aesthetics of the shot, less at the reality of it. I think, I am selfish. I should change.

But I am bursting with a surge of something at the fact that, yes, I have finally sat down with The New York Times.

And no, I will not finish it in its entirety because I have other work that needs to get done. Even with all the time in the world I could never say that I have read all of it, because I avoid the Sports section—even when a stud is plastered all over the 5" by 5" page.

I have my flowery notebook of my favorite phrases and quotations right beside me, just in case I find a really savvy sentence (I hope Dowd graces the Op-Ed today!) and need to pen it.

Wait, I am nodding off for a bit, and am thinking of reaching for the two bent containers of espresso shots by the coffee maker. I see the small goldfish bowl that buttresses some books I have been meaning to read.

I am seeing myself reading, and all of a sudden I can’t read because this is too good to be true; I have finally consecrated my own, timeless day to The New York Times. I contemplate clipping out Irving Penn’s obituary in case it is worth a shitload one day, when I realize I know absolutely nothing about this man, except for the fact that he was a famous photographer who I should know, seeing that I have identified as a black-and-white photographer. Wait. When will I shoot with my Canon T70 again? That roll of Ilford Pan F Plus ISO 50/18° 36 EXP? About those numbers on the roll of film… I heard the photography professor was dodgy.

* * *

Ping-pong emotions won’t get you anywhere, they won’t make anyone want to love or stay with you, even you won’t want to love or stay with you, do you see your blindness as a blessing—the world in Impressionist panes, panes of blobs and torn vistas, swim until you pee in the host family’s pool and never own up to it, recall that television series Forensic Files—that luminol will reveal blood no matter how clean the surface, go through gum like he goes through pens, go through pens like he could never go through gum, swallow gum because one day you forgot that it was not candy, find a different boy every week, find the same room for the different boy, find witty things to say, mundane things to say and make them sound witty, press for silence to make it awkward for someone else and fairly comfortable for you—so comfortable you could bathe in silence all day, do you sleep until the batteries of your alarm clock are tired, replay that one song until it could be sewn onto your skin like you asked your neighbor to sew your key into your palm so you wouldn’t be locked out anymore, think about radical things and radical actions and never take action, do you put in three loads of laundry and walk up the stairs to go outside/ see a black man with bloodshot eyes run down and mumble a quick “Hi!” as if you two had known each other, when exiting the Laundromat did you see Jose standing on the corner and wonder if he was standing guard and waiting for someone to prey on so that he can call the black man up and set an itinerary, do you think they are part of a grand plan to rob you, then do you think you would have thought differently were the man with bloodshot eyes white?, do you entertain grand ideas and speak of them as if they deserve the time of the day, take as many hits as you can just because your all-or-nothing personality would not allow otherwise, sit up straight forcefully and unknowingly lean into a slouch like always, look at the same


boy to see if he is looking at you, wonder whether you really like boys or were conditioned to, look at her like she is the most beautiful thing you have seen to date, you can’t understand how Lily can’t make a comment without saying “sort of” at least four times, but you understand how Kaya unfurls her hand around tea in a honey jar!, you can’t be one of those people who pack their bags in a swift ten seconds or scoop up receipts as soon as they leave the cashier’s hand—how is it that bills go into their wallets all folded and disordered—not even in descending monetary value, harass him because he defines “Unconditional Positive Regard” to you, cry during the same songs because they were the ones you listened to when you found out there was no room for Latin in your tenth grade schedule, do you cry because everyone else around you at the funeral is crying and even though your grandfather died at five a.m. he was buried a few hours later in a wooden box and you are a little relieved that it isn’t expensive and very relieved because he can’t ask for money, smoke here when you can because you think you need it because in case your “Unconditional Positive Regard” friend is going to come by and you even got him attached to smoking, then weed, oh god, walk out of a talk about love and marriage as it relates to religion because it was so incredibly ridiculous to hear that man speak and have everyone nod in agreement, you hate preachers and speakers who do it like they can only do that and then they must do it with so much fervor, so much fervor that no one can walk out on them but you did, you did, you did.

* * * So I am judging the pages of the Arts section and pretending to care about this new opera frill taking up most of C1, but there is no one in the room to impress. They say you forget the ones who make the greatest impression on you—Antony isn’t here, but he will start his day in three hours and five minutes, I will start mine in six hours and fifty minutes, and the Day—tart, heartless—will surface.

This spring, Ms. Reza was awarded an Honorable Mention for the Cole Prize at Wesleyan University, given to the first-year student who shows the greatest ability in fiction or nonfiction writing.

Natasha Batten ’15 as seen in the Class VII production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado.

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nightingale in china

Our Mandarin language program was established with the idea that, at some point down the road, we would find opportunity for our students to travel in China, practicing the language and experiencing the culture first-hand. It was fortuitous, then, when Peter Cao, a family friend of Lily Zhang ’08, approached Nightingale this past spring offering to help organize a trip to China to visit several schools. Associate Head of School Kitty Gordan, Mandarin teacher Grace Wang, and Head of Upper School Paul Burke began planning right away, coordinating with Mr. Cao and Ms. Zhang and securing seven interested Mandarin students for the trip: Valerie Cardozo ’13, Diana Chen ’12, Emily Cummings ’13, Sarah McGowan ’12, Melissa Rios ’12, Natalie Stern ’13, and Crystal Yam ’13. Only two days after Nightingale’s Commencement exercises, the girls (with Mr. Burke and Ms. Wang as chaperones) were off to China for two weeks.

Our travelers spent time in Shanghai and Hangzhou and surrounding environments, visiting schools and museums, hiking and boating, and enjoying a lot of Chinese food. They played sports with local youth, stayed with host families, and took part in several lessons at the schools. “This trip provided access in very real ways to the Chinese people,” said Mr. Burke, something that would not have been possible on a more traditional tour or strictly academic trip. Already, our Upper School team is finding ways to start a longterm partnership with some of these schools, and it is expected that another group of students and faculty will travel to China in two or three years. The girls kept a blog about their travels, complete with photos and video, at www.nightingale.org/china.

running strong

middle school sports

The 7/8 track team finished their stellar season with outstanding showings at their meets on Friday, May 14, and on Monday, May 17. At Friday’s AAIS Championships, the team battled the intense heat and humidity to come away with a stunning victory, winning six out of ten events and placing runners in the top four spots in eight races. On Monday, the Nighthawks followed up their championship win with

To say that this was a banner year for sports teams in the Middle School would be an understatement. In addition to the successes of the 7/8 Track and Field team, our younger Nighthawks excelled in gymnasiums and playing fields around the city. The 7/8 Soccer team finished out the Fall of 2009 undefeated, scoring a grand total of 47 goals over the course of the season; their opponents were able to score only five goals against them. The Middle School Volleyball A squad also rounded out their season with an impressive league record, and the Basketball A team beat Chapin to advance to the semi-final round of their championship tournament.

a great day at the Gotham Games, where the team came away with loads of medals and two meet records. Individually, Anna Jurew won the 1500 in 5:18.44 and Isabella Beroutsos came in 4th in 5:27.87—both breaking the previous meet record. Later, the 4x400 relay won with a record-breaking time of 4:35.18. Congratulations to the team and to Coaches Wangdu, Mumford, and Milazzo!

Spring saw our Middle Schoolers’ success continue, as the 7/8 Lacrosse crew beat Brearley by a whopping four goals to clinch the AAIS Middle School Lacrosse Championship and 7/8 Softball enjoyed an outstanding season, undoubtedly paving the way for a strong season in 2011.

Perhaps the best news of all? The girls had fun and were excited to participate in as many athletic seasons as possible—90% of Nightingale’s Middle School played on a team this past academic year. The future of athletics at Nightingale looks to be bright.


goin’ green

The Green Power Partnership, an environmental initiative that works with schools, universities, and companies across the country, recently ranked Nightingale #11 on a list of the “Top 20 Green-Powered K–12 Schools”—that is #11 in the nation. Such achievements reflect the hard work that our school’s Environmental Board, led by Sara Allan ‘11 and Hailey Huddleston ‘11, has put into making our community forward-thinking and environmentally conscious.

Among the board’s other projects: using hand driers instead of paper towels in school restrooms, turning off computer monitors and lights when not in use, using local and organic produce in the kitchen, eliminating trays from the Student Center, using a composter that has been installed on the terrace, and planting fruits and vegetables on the terrace. The board states that their goal is to: “educate the members of the Nightingale-Bamford community about our changing planet, while encouraging them to become more environmentally friendly in their everyday practices.”

the beat goes on

Ms. Balafas’s Class VIII drumming class recently brought their musical talents to the people of New York City when they started a drumming circle in Central Park. Raising money for VH1’s Save the Music Foundation, the girls showed off their rhythmic skills to delighted onlookers. From students to small children to neighbors walking their dogs through the park on the humid day, all stopped for at least a moment or two to enjoy the music.

guest speakers

Nightingale has the great fortune to hear from a wide variety of outside speakers. Herewith, a small sample of those who spoke with our students in 2009–2010. KEN AULETTA PP‘00

Past parent, best-selling author (Googled), journalist and “Annals of Communication” columnist for The New Yorker

HAROLD HOLzER

Noted historian and best-selling author, one of the country’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln, and co-chairman of the United States Lincoln Bicentennial Commission

RANYA IDILBY

Co-author of The Faith Club, written by a Muslim, a Christian, and a Jewish mother

ROSETTA LEE

Faculty member at Seattle Girls’ School and lecturer on gender equity

KATI MARTON PP’98

Past parent, acclaimed author of Enemies of the People: My Family’s Journey to America, reporter, and human rights advocate

GREG MORTENSON

Best-selling author of Three Cups of Tea, humanitarian, and founder of the Central Asia Institute and Pennies For Peace

JUDITHE REGISTRE

Director of development and outreach at Women for Women International

KATE WALBERT

Award-winning novelist of Our Kind (2004 National Book Award Finalist); The Gardens of Kyoto (Connecticut Book Award in Fiction); and, most recently, A Short History of Women

The Class of 2010 spent several days at the end of May on the campus of the University of Vermont. Through several seminars there, our seniors learned and discussed a variety of things to help ease their transition to college. Some of the time was also spent getting to know students from a local Vermont high school.

The Class of 2014 spent the morning of October 16 at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse in lower Manhattan, meeting with Federal District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff and observing arguments in several cases.


the class of 2010

Members of the senior class (above) have chosen have chosen the following colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. Congratulations to our accomplished Class of 2010! Boston CollegeBrandeis UniversityBrown University (2)Bucknell University (2)Carnegie Mellon UniversityColorado CollegeCornell UniversityDartmouth College (2)Davidson College (2)Duke UniversityDurham University (UK)George Washington UniversityGeorgetown UniversityHaverford College (2)Hofstra UniversityLehigh UniversityMacalester CollegeNorthwestern UniversityPurchase College (State University of NY)Skidmore College (2)Smith CollegeSyracuse University (3)Tulane University (2)University of ChicagoUniversity of MichiganUniversity of PennsylvaniaUniversity of Southern CaliforniaVanderbilt University Vassar CollegeWashington University in St. LouisWellesley CollegeWilliams CollegeYale University

100Percent of student body who participated in community service projects during the 2009–2010 school year

2,850Sandwiches made for yorkville Common Pantry during Middle School community service evenings with Collegiate boys and during our annual Family Service day

600Greeting cards made for and written to: soldiers serving overseas, pajama recipients (part of Nightingale’s partnership with the Pajama Program), and the elderly at nursing homes around New york City

5,000dollars raised, so far, for the School for a School program. Started by the women’s rights Club and advisor Susan Cohen-Nicole, the program is raising money to build a new school in Cambodia

279Miles walked by members of Nightingale’s community during charity walks this past school year

17,635dollars raised for charity walks

29Organizations, both local and global, who benefited from our service in one way or another during the 2009–2010 school year

community service

The Class of 2014 visited washington, d.C., from April 28–30, 2010. They are pictured here with representative Anthony d. weiner (far right).


Over 100 Nightingale-Bamford alumnae returned to the schoolhouse for Reunion on May 21 and 22, 2010. The weekend began on Friday afternoon with the annual Founders’ Day assembly: Maureen Brown Fant ’65 was awarded the Distinguished Achievement Award, Marina Hahn ’75 was awarded the Distinguished Service Award and gave an inspiring address, and the Class of 2010 was inducted into the Alumnae Association. That evening was an all-class reception in the H. Dale Hemmerdinger Auditorium, followed by the Class of 2000 reading their 10-year letters. A student panel on Saturday morning provided insight into student life today, and after a special 90th- anniversary presentation, Reunion classes gathered for a lunch in the Sarah E. Hamilton Student Center.

Above: Members of the Class of 1960 gather in front of the schoolhouse for a picture at Reunion on May 21, 2010 (l to r): Phoebe Sherman Sheftel, Martha Randall Tillim, Charlotte Lee, Justine Schroyer Clegg, Carol Seabrook Boulanger, Joan Hanbury Beard, Jennifer Riblet Dewar, Susan Whitney Lewis, Molly Munster Linksz, Anne Bloch Snee (holding banner), Deborah Lipkin Goldsmith, Christopher Boldt-Affleck, Janet Hinshaw-Thomas, Edith Borie, Mary Haskins Reinertsen, Eunice Dauterman Maguire, Jean Klingenstein, and Muriel Farley Dominguez.

Top Right: Members of the Class of 1995 at the Friday night reception (l to r): Kara Brevazar, Ellen Warfield, Nadia Lubow Smith, Katie Zorn Hand, Claire Anderson, Taylor McKenzie-Jackson, Amanda Potter, and Charlotte Ronson.

Middle left: Members of the Class of 2000 with Head of School Dorothy A. Hutcheson at the Reunion class luncheon (l to r): standing, Fernanda Winthrop, Celene Menschel, Zoe Settle, Elizabeth Niemiec, Becky Tanenbaum, Margot Hill, and Emily Smith; seated, Ms. Hutcheson, Sara Minardi, and Isabel Galassi.

Middle Right: Jessica Glass ’85, Marjorie Stuart Peters ’85, Anne Robinson Mickle ’85, Susan Murphy ’85, Sarah Thorpe Hacking ’85, and Monica Ilich Vogelstein ‘85

Bottom left: Susie Heller ’69, Olivia Colson ’06, Jackie Kier ’05, and former Head of Upper School Marcy Mann

Bottom right: Elizabeth Harvey van Merkensteijn ’75, Barbara Farley Heller ’62, Muriel Farley Dominguez ‘60, and Joan Hanbury Beard ’60

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Angelica Fales Bentley ’36 writes, “We never get to New York City anymore, but are getting along well in our lovely home on the Long Island Sound.”

While many of her contemporaries are having great-grandchildren, Cornelia Manierre Baddeley ’47 says that she is still working on grandchildren! She expects her fifth this fall.

Cornelia wadsworth robart ’57 (below) recently enjoyed a flying lesson given to her by one of her daughters for a 70th birthday present. In late 2009 she went to work with Habitat for Humanity once again, this time in Cambodia.

“Ankor Wat,” she says, “was astonishing.” She later went on to Vietnam, which she found magnificent. Cornelia greeted her first grandchild over Easter

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weekend in Zurich: “A delightful baby, loves to smile, liked to hear me sing. How perfect is that?! Warm greetings to classmates and other Nightingale friends and family!”

Annabel Stearns Stehli ’57 recently moved to New Orleans to be close to her youngest daughter, Sarah, and son-in-law, Lucius. Sarah is still working as an architect for Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation, and she and Lucius welcomed their first baby, Lucius Alexander Howell III, this past May (below). Annabel’s son Mark and his wife Erin have two children, Meghan, 3½, and Peter, 1½. Annabel’s eldest daughter, Georgiana, lives in Corvallis, OR, with her family and is a caricaturist. Annabel herself is still actively involved in the field of auditory training and her three books are still in print: Sound of a Miracle (Doubleday, 1991), Dancing in the Rain (Beaufort Books, 1995), and Sound of Falling Snow (Beaufort Books, 2003).

Sandra Brandt waters ’57 continues to volunteer at her local elementary school and recently discovered the joy of hiking at Zion and Yosemite National Parks.

This past summer, Karen Hecht ‘58 organized an exhibit at the Hampton Bays Public Library on the life of her father, George A. Hecht, and his experience working for 50 years at the Doubleday Book Shops. After diligently working his way up the company hierarchy, an excerpt from the exhibition summary states that Hecht became President of the Doubleday Book Shops, vice-president of Doubleday & Company, and president of the American

Booksellers Association, and worked with numerous authors, including Booth Tarkington, Howard Fast, and B. H. Friedman.

Jean Klingenstein ’60 writes in that “As one of the 20+ members of the Class of 1960 who attended our 50th Reunion, I can’t say enough about how much fun we all had being together again! It was so reassuring to learn that Nightingale remains strong and steadfastly committed to the values and standards we remember so well. The functions at the school itself were most informative and inspiring, and an absolutely delicious dinner Saturday night was provided by Charlotte Lee and her husband Bill Kern, only to be followed by a most gracious and wonderful brunch at the home of Georgia Palade Van Dusen on Sunday morning. We missed those of you who couldn’t make it and look forward to our next celebration! Kudos to all who made this such a special event and so many thanks!”

Susan Torrey Coppock ’63 recently retired after teaching fourth-graders in a French immersion program for 20 years. Susan sees Mary Coleman Mansfield ’63 and Pat McMurray ‘63 quite a bit, and notes that their lifelong friendship began at Nightingale.

Virginia Kirkland Stuart ’63 and Laird have moved to Marin County upon their retirement, and Laird is currently acting as interim president of the San Francisco Theological Seminary. Ms. Stuart hosted a special reception for Bay-area alumnae earlier this spring; see page 54.

Sandra Gary ’65 is reporting for Voice of America from San Francisco. Her daughter is about to start law school at the University of California Hastings in San Francisco and her husband continues to enjoy working for his own engineering sales company.

60s

Class notes are published twice a year in each issue of The Blue Doors. The deadline for inclusion in the fall issue is June 15, and December 15 for inclusion in the spring issue.

Karen Joseloff ’11, Alina Zemor ’11, Margaret Niemiec ’04, Emma Neisser ’09, Head of School Dorothy A. Hutcheson, Gaby Santana ’06, Ali Barker ’06, and Holly Hutcheson ’11 came together on February 15, 2010 in Nashville.

Peggy Koch Palmer ’76 and Sarah Thompson Kane ’97 joined host Annabel Torrey Raymond ’97 for a Los Angeles alumnae reception on March 29, 2010.

Kiersten Miller ’91, Director of Alumnae Relations Laura Davis Stahl ‘94, Maureen Brown Fant ’65, and Elizabeth Farren ’97 gathered in rome on May 8, 2010.

Virginia Kirkland Stuart ’63 hosted a special reception for San Francisco-area alumnae on February 23, 2010. Standing: Ms. Stuart, Christine Lankenau Kurlander ’92, Amanda Marguiles ’92, Amy Young ’91, Vanessa Morrison ’93, and Clark Jordan ’92; seated: Ms. Hutcheson, Lauren Hirshfield ’93, Melinda McIntire Krigel ’82, and Sandra Gary ’65.

Ms. Hutcheson (above, center) visited duke university this spring for her 30th Reunion and while there met up with Eva Hudgins ’06, Charlotte Pettit ’09, Whitney Lane ’06, and Keiko Katsuragawa ’06 on April 16, 2010.

Sarah Minard ’00, Alexandra Gross ’97, Maria Rose Punterei ‘97, Laura Davis Stahl ‘94, Lauren Potters Horn ’97, Tiffany Hoffman ’96, and Gloria Katimbang Wise ’96 gathered at the London home of Nightingale trustee Clarissa Bronfman on June 2, 2010.

alumnae receptions


Sarah Hearn ’74 just celebrated her 24th anniversary working for the government of Canada! She and her husband spent two weeks on Prince Edward Island for their annual summer sojourn, and this year, her mother joined them for a few days. Upon returning, Sarah underwent full knee-replacement surgery, followed by three months of recuperation. Now, she says,

“I will be in fine form to start work on my latest production for the Ottawa Little Theatre, where I am the chair of the Artistic Committee and of the Play-Selection Committee!”

deborah Blood Moore ‘76 and her family are doing well in Berkeley, CA (her kids are in their last year of college!). She wishes everyone well and is looking forward to seeing classmates and friends in 2011!

Christine Burton Schwartz ‘76 enjoyed being part of Reunion last month and adds that it is always great seeing old faces— as in past friends, not as in wrinkles! Her daughter just finished her second year of law school and resides with her husband in California, and her son just graduated Boston University’s College of Communication.

Amazon.com named Lisa Grunwald Adler ’77’s most recent novel, The Irresistible Henry House (Random House, 2010), one of the 10 best books published so far this year. Read an excerpt from her novel on page 15.

Patricia Lannon ’70 writes that her twin daughters recently graduated from high school, and did much better than she had: Mallory was salutatorian and Stephanie was first speaker, and their class colors were also blue and silver! Mallory also received the Maine State Principal’s Award and will be attending Saint Joseph’s College of Maine, while Stephanie will be at Champlain College in Burlington, VT. Patricia was sorry to have missed Reunion but had already been roped into playing the part of Christine Linde in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. “Who’d have ever thought I would take to the stage?”

At the time she submitted her note, rebecca Schroyer rahl ’70 was looking forward to coming back for Reunion. “I remember seeing the older ladies in Nightingale visiting for their reunions and wondering how you get that old (keep breathing), how you get that many wrinkles (keep smiling), and why they still cared enough to come back. I get it now that I am one of those women myself.”

Rowle Deland, son of emme Levin deland ’72, was married on June 26, 2010. In attendance were (below, l to r): Ashley Schmon ’04, Annie Leibling ’72, daphne Schmon ’05, emme deland, Kate deland ’04, and Susie Heller ’69.

Tabitha estabrook Claydon ’83 celebrated her 10th wedding anniversary in Bath, England, along with Nightingale friends (above, l to r): Odette Cabrera duggan ’83, Jennifer Lonoff Schiff ’93, and Alexandra whyte ’83.

Kimberly Green Foster ’83 is living in Atlanta and getting used to life after losing her father at the end of 2008. Her son Micah is now eight years old and amazes her more every day. She recently collaborated with Patti Moreno Patton-Spruill ‘90 on Patti’s upcoming book, The Garden Girl. Besides working with Patti—which is excellent—Kimberly is finishing her first novel and looking for an agent—anyone know one? She hopes all are well!

Alison edwards Curwen ’84 and her family recently made the decision to move to England. In September, she and Austin will begin teaching at the Kingham School in Kingham, England, which is in the Cottswolds, where he will be the director of American Studies and she will be one of the school’s learning specialists in its Green Program. Darcy (11) will go to school there, while Tag (9) and Stapley (8) will attend the Village Primary. “It’s all rather exciting!” In addition to the big move, Alison recently had a blast with Victoria Johnson Sanborn ‘84 in Lake Tahoe.

Ariane Maclean ’84 and Marc Trimuschat were married on April 10, 2010, in San Francisco, CA. She is pictured (top of next column) with bridesmaids damaris wollenburg Maclean

’97, Katherine Jacobus, and didi Maclean Granger ’82.

Alice Babcock Pearce ’81 writes in that she and her family are still doing well in Delray Beach, FL, enjoying life across the street from the Atlantic Ocean. The kids love Gulf Stream School, and Alice is playing lots of tennis and continuing to do art consulting. She would love to hear from any classmates who are in the area!

Catherine Baxter Sidamon-eristoff ’82 writes that she and her family moved to Princeton, NJ, after her husband, Andrew, was appointed treasurer of the State of New Jersey by Governor Christie. Catherine will continue to commute to her office in New York, where she is a managing director at Constellation Wealth Advisors, a boutique private wealth management firm. Their new address in Princeton is: 146 Hodge Road, Princeton, NJ 08540—visitors are welcome!

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Sara M. Grady ‘93 (below) was recently married to Jason Wood, a chef, and the couple has moved to Garrison, NY. Sara is now the director of special projects for Glynwood, an organization that works to save farming and strengthen the regional food system, and Jason is the working executive chef at Tavern, a restaurant with a seasonal menu sourced from local farms.

Hadley Smith Cooper ’93 gave birth to her second daughter, Catherine Constance Cooper, on June 10, 2010. Hadley also has a two-year-old, Clover. She and husband Bill live in Chevy Chase, MD.

Allison Schoenthal ’93 (below) announces that Cole J. Hoffman was born on March 30, 2010. He was 7 lbs., 4 oz. and 20½ inches.

Jennifer Kosovsky Flandina ’94 and her husband John are expecting their second child in September 2010 and are eagerly awaiting her arrival!

Morgan L. Harris ’94 is a doctor of physical therapy at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, CT. She lives in NYC with her two dogs, Shelby and Vegas.

Starr elizabeth Haymes ‘94 married Jacques-Laurent Kempin at the Maro-Lago club in Palm Beach on March 21, 2010. The two met eight months prior and got engaged after 37 days. The couple will be living between Paris, New York, and London.

Palmer Jones O’Sullivan ’94 writes that she and her husband welcomed George Ford O’Sullivan on January 6, 2010. He will be known as Ford, and Finn is very excited to be a big brother!

Jean Boehmler reynolds ’94 and her husband Carlo are overjoyed to announce that Sarah Hollingsworth Reynolds (below) was born on May 6, 2010. She weighed 5 lbs., 1 oz. and measured 17½ inches.

Laura davis Stahl ’94 and her husband Jim have moved back from London to New York. While they enjoyed their year abroad, they are happy to be back with friends and family in NYC.

Kathryn wellin Thier ’94 is now the director of marketing and communications at Davidson Day School in Davidson, NC.

Katie zorn Hand ’95 and her husband Douglas became the proud parents of Theodore

“Theo” Henry Hand (above) on February 17, 2009.

Alexandra Stanton ‘87 gave birth in July 2009 to Andre Natapoff-Stanton (below). Already an avowed Democrat, Andre has amazed his parents by sleeping through the night since the age of three months. Alexandra recently joined Rosemont Seneca Partners, an alternative investment firm with an advisory practice; she specializes in green technology and economic development.

Nicole Preve dembinski ‘88 ran the Paris marathon this spring and loved every minute of it. She continues to enjoy her life in London and recently saw Ariel Childs ‘88.

Amanda Stern ’89 received the first Booky Man Award from Paste Magazine for her work as creator and curator of “The Happy Ending Music and Reading Series.” Paste hailed the series—currently at Joe’s Pub in NYC—

“significant… arguably the most important in America.” Stern pairs writers with musicians and has welcomed over 500 artists including Richard Price, Moby, Zoe Heller, Vampire Weekend, James Salter, Andrew Sean Greer, Mary Gaitskill, and Laurie Anderson. Her children’s book series Frankly, Frannie can be found in bookstores under the name AJ Stern. She is at work on her next adult novel, written under her own name.

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Lisa Harewood Velummylum ’90 was married to Ganesh Velummylum on October 12, 2009, in Bryn Athyn, PA. Her sister, Michelle Harewood

‘92, was the maid of honor.

elizabeth de Santo ’91 is a social scientist specializing in marine conservation, with a particular focus on protected areas and related governance issues. She recently completed her PhD in Geography at the University College London and lived in the UK for six years. In August 2009, she took up her current position as assistant professor of Marine Affairs at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is happy to speak to any Nightingale alumnae interested in further education or careers in marine management/conservation and encourages anyone who is interested to peruse the Dalhousie University Web site at: www.marineaffairsprogram.dal.ca

Kiersten Pilar Miller ‘91 is loving her life in Rome as a new mom and entrepreneur. She recently opened up a boutique called the Milk Bar, which is a store and meeting place dedicated to pregnancy, breastfeeding, and motherhood; she is opening the second one in Milan this fall.


Sabina Menschel ’95 announces that she and Bill are the proud parents of Eila Lee Priestap (below), who arrived on June 29, 2010. Eila weighed in at 7 lbs., 15 oz., and the family is doing well.

After working as a reporter for 11 years, Monica Polanco ‘95 has embarked on a new career—she has enrolled in New York University’s Silver School of Social Work and plans to graduate in 2012 with a MSW.

Nadia Lubow Smith ’95 and her husband Brian welcomed baby Charlotte Anne (below) on March 23, 2010. She weighed 7 lbs., 15 oz. and measured 21 inches.

Brooke Bancroft ‘96, assistant director of admissions at Nightingale, welcomed Pearson Ellis Bancroft (below) on January 18, 2010, along with her husband Townsend and son Teddy. All are well and excited about the new addition to the Bancroft family!

Samar Alghanim Bjelobrk ’96 was married to Sanjin Bjelobrk this past May during a three-day celebration in Taormina, Sicily, complete with breathtaking views and a fireworks display. Also in attendance were maid of honor danielle Apostolatos ’96, Katherine Nahon ’96, Gloria Katimbang wise ’96, and Head of Lower School Blanche Mansfield.

Upper School English Teacher and Philomel Advisor Christine Schutt was named a 2010 Guggenheim Fellow for fiction, one of four women and eight men to receive the distinction. The prestigious awards are based upon recommendations of judging panels composed of numerous well-known artists, scholars, and scientists.

Maggie Tobin, a member of Nightingale’s Art Department, was featured in an exhibition this past spring at the Michelle Rosenfeld Gallery in New York. The group show, entitled Modern and Contemporary Masters, included pieces by Matisse, de Kooning, and Picasso.

Laurie wachtel Cohen, who was until this past June Nightingale’s special events consultant, and her husband Ben welcomed Lilah Madison into the world on May 31. Big sister Ella (with Lilah, below) is already taking charge as the proud big sister!

Former math teacher and Class X homeroom teacher Traci yokoyama was married to Wynn Yamami on June 26 in Laguna Beach, CA, where, Traci says, they

“had a great time eating, dancing, and dancing some more” (below). The newlyweds have combined their names and will now go by Wynn and Traci Kiyama.

Anna Sobel ’97 has travelled extensively, using puppets to share positive messages with children around the world. See page 4.

Amanda Stetson espy ‘97 writes that she and her husband welcomed Emilia de Sales Espy (below) on February 3, 2010.

Krissie McGuire ’98 writes that she received her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Yeshiva University and will begin a fellowship at North Shore-LIJ Hospital in the fall.

In May of 2010, elizabeth H. riley ’98 became the vice president of beauty public relations at the Starkworks Group, a leading integrated marketing and communications agency.

Jennifer N. Vogel ‘98 received her LLM in Intellectual Property Law in June 2010.

Victoria A. Hirshfield ’99 was in an independent film called Prince of Broadway, which opened at the Angelika Theater over Labor Day weekend! She’s also a member of the NYC-based Old Kent Road Theater Company. She uses Victoria Tate as her stage name.

Atalanta C. Mihas ’99 is living in New York City again and currently works as a prosecutor with the New York County District Attorney’s office.

zoe Settle ’00 writes in that she and Becky Tanenbaum ‘00 visited Louisa Conrad ‘00 and her fiancé, Luke Farrell, this past spring at the Blue Ledge Farm outside Middlebury, VT, where Louisa and Luke were apprentices

Nancy Longley Agnew, who taught English, acted as supervisor of the Upper School, and served as the director of development at Nightingale throughout the 1970s, died on October 24, 2009, in St. Louis, MO. She was 81.

Mary Gardiner Jones ’39, an early Nightingale alumna and consumer advocate pioneer, died on January 6, 2010, at the age of 89. Ms. Jones overcame monumental odds in her pursuit of a fulfilling professional career, working as a partner in a high-powered DC law firm, a lawyer for the U.S. Justice Department, the first female commissioner in the Federal Trade Commission, and the founder and president of the Consumer Interest Research Institute. She later wrote a memoir of her life, entitled Tearing Down Walls.

learning to make goat cheese. “Needless to say, we sampled all of their hard work.”

Paloma Figueroa ’01 recently moved to San Francisco, CA, with her longtime boyfriend to pursue a new career in the nonprofit world. She misses New York City but enjoys the new adventure the West Coast has to offer.

Astra Holder ’01 writes: “On May 28, 2010, I graduated from Rutgers School of Law. From 2010–2011, I will be the judicial law clerk for Judge Allison Accurso, the presiding judge of the Chancery Division for New Jersey’s Somerset/Hunterdon/Warren counties. Following my clerkship, I will work for the law firm McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP.”

Alexandra Field ’02 worked as an anchor and reporter for CBS and Fox affiliate stations in Watertown, NY. She is now with CBS in Albany, NY, where she recently ran into Ms. Hutcheson, board chair Nina Joukowsky Köprülü ’79, and several current students during a Nightingale trip to the capital.

Glendaly Muñoz ’02 is currently an analyst at ING Clarion Capital. She enjoyed the May Mixer with Lauren Goldenberg ’02 and Melissa Providence ’02: “It’s always great reminiscing with my Nightingale girls.”

Melissa Providence ‘02 writes that she is currently working at Prep for Prep and will be heading to law school at NYU this fall.

Sabrina C. Hanson ’04 will be graduating from New York University with a BA in Biology after the Fall 2010 semester, and will be applying to veterinary schools. She is currently working as an assistant veterinary technician at Mercy Animal Hospital on the Upper East Side. Over the summer, she traveled to South Africa for six weeks to volunteer with wild animals and in August, she volunteered at the Bronx Zoo. She thinks about Nightingale often and hopes everyone is well, especially her classmates of ‘04!

Samantha A. Kleinman ’04 is working at the NFL in player development, where she helps current and former players prepare for life after football through continuing education, career development, financial education, and life skills programs.

Mary Grace Harris Knipe passed away on December 26, 2009, and is survived by her daughters, Nightingale Trustee Patsy Gilchrist Howard ’62 and Anne Gilchrist Hall ’67.

richard Mayer, father of Elisabeth Mayer ’92 and Dr. Victoria Mayer ’96 and husband of former Nightingale librarian Harriet Mayer, passed away on July 2, 2010 at the age of 75.

emily Chadbourne Minor ’32 passed away in Rye, NY, on October 30, 2009. She is survived by four children, 14 grandchildren, and 23 great-grandchildren. She was 94.

eleanora Post Thomas ’32 died on April 13, 2010 at the age of 97.

Natalie Janvrin wiggins ’41 died at the age of 92 on May 21, 2010 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. She is survived by her sister, Mary Janvrin ’43.

emily Graff ‘05 recently graduated from Harvard College with an honors degree in history and literature. Her senior thesis,

“’Books Like These Are BURNED!’: The 1933 Nazi Book Burnings in American Historical Memory,” won the Perry Miller Prize for work of high distinction. She is now an editorial assistant at the Penguin Press.

Jing Jin ‘05 writes that she and her classmates all had a lovely time revisiting the blue doors for their fifth reunion in May and capped it off with cocktails at Nina Stuart ‘05’s on Saturday night. She was so glad to reconnect with her classmates!

Three Nightingale girls just graduated from Duke University: eva Hudgins ’06 and whitney Lane ’06 are applying to medical school for the fall of 2011, and Keiko Katsuragawa ’06, graduated with an economics degree and will start in the investment banking training program at Deutsche Bank this fall. Charlotte Petit ’09 continues at Duke, very happy and very active in their dance program.

Melanie Kimmelman ’06 recently graduated from the George Washington University in Washington, DC, with a BA in Art History. She has accepted a position as the assistant to a gallery manager in Georgetown.

Sarah Philips ’06 graduated from Tufts University as a chemistry major and math minor. This year, in addition to defending her thesis in “Development of a ligation-based assay to genotype mitochondrial SNPs to trace maternal ancestry using a low-cost readout,” she presented a paper at the American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco.

Claire Steines ’06 and Shanna Keown ‘06 graduated from Kenyon College in May 2010, Shanna cum laude and Claire magna cum laude.

Hilary Bernstein ’08 spent her summer interning at a literary agency. She loved her job and being home in Manhattan.

Marina reza ’09 received an Honorable Mention for the Cole Prize at Wesleyan University. Read her submission on page 42.

Choral director Courtney Birch, husband Justin, and big brother Ben brought home little sister Lily Madeleine Warner (below) this past spring after she was born on March 16, 2010. Lily weighed in at 8 lbs. 2 oz. and measured 22 inches in length.

Violin instructor Greg Harrington toured China from March 27–April 11 this spring, performing in six concerts (with one venue holding nearly 2,000 ticket-holders) and one master class to promote his CD, Reflections.

Head of School dorothy A.Hutcheson and her husband, Sam (below), completed a rigorous pilgrimage in Spain this summer, traveling from Leon to Santiago de Compostela. The Hutchesons walked a route that has been covered by pilgrims for nearly a millennium, walking about ten to twelve miles each day.

Former Nightingale Class II Homeroom Teacher Sara Parent announced the birth of her daughter, Catherine Beatrice Parent, on March 18, 2010. The family, including big sister Elizabeth, are thrilled with their new addition!

faculty and staff notes

in memoriam

00s

Ann wilson ’49, a Nightingale alumna known for her unwavering devotion to the blue doors, died at her East Hampton home on June 15, 2010. In 1956, she returned to the schoolhouse to teach in the Lower School (also running the Admissions Office briefly during the 1970s), and she remained as a beloved faculty member until her retirement in 2000. Even into retirement, Miss Wilson continued to devote herself to

Nightingale, assisting with the admissions process until 2009. This remarkable woman left an indelible legacy at the blue doors, and her memory here—through physical reminders, such as the Ann Wilson Reading Room in the Lower School Library; traditions, such as the poetry anthology that is bestowed to each Class I girl in her honor; and spirit, such as the enthusiasm with which our girls fill the hallways of the schoolhouse each and every day—will live on.

we will be hosting a special celebration of Miss wilson’s life on October 4, 2010, at 6:30 p.m. here in the schoolhouse. If you would like to attend, or would like to submit a photo or memory of Miss wilson, please contact zoë Gerry Bullard at [email protected] or (212) 922-6506.

ann wilson ’49


A D I N N E R A N D AU C T I O N B E N E F I T T O

C E L E B R AT E N I G H T I N G A L E ’ S H I S T O RY

M A R C H 1 5 , 2 0 1 1

All adult members of the Nightingale community

are invited to join us for a Parents Association benefit

to celebrate our school’s history and raise money

for the Scholarship Fund. Invitation forthcoming.

www.nightingale.org/90

HEAD Of ScHOOL

Dorothy A. Hutcheson

BOARD Of TRUSTEES

Nina Joukowsky Köprülü ‘79PresidentLisa Grunwald Adler ‘77Vice PresidentJames D. ForbesTreasurerMartin Frederic EvansSecretaryClarissa BronfmanJames S. ChanosBlair Pillsbury Enders ‘88Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss ‘93John J. HannanPatricia Gilchrist Howard ‘62Dorothy A. HutchesonEx-officioSusan Ryan KesslerElena Hahn Kiam ‘81Steven B. KlinskyPaul LachmanLouise W. LamphereAmy Tsui LukePresident, Parents AssociationEx-officioKathryn MartinWilliam J. MichaelcheckDebra G. Perelman ‘92Debora SparMary Margaret TrousdaleWendy A. Van AmsonJuliet Rothschild Weissman ‘93President, Alumnae BoardEx-officio

HONORARY BOARD MEMBERS

Jerome P. KenneySusan Hecht Tofel ‘48Grant F. Winthrop

PARENTS ASSOcIATION OffIcERS

Amy Tsui LukePresidentJennifer BrodskyVice PresidentHilary Johnson ’76Secretary/Treasurer

ALUMNAE BOARD

Juliet Rothschild Weissman ‘93PresidentBrooke Brodsky ‘91Vice President and President-electZoe Settle ‘00SecretaryDorothy A. HutchesonEx-officioLiz Boehmler ‘94Chair, Alumnae Fund CommitteeSage Garner ‘04Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss ‘93Michele Raynor Littenberg ‘87Melissa Providence ‘02Mary Richter ‘93Elizabeth Riley ‘98Amanda Sullivan ‘83Melissa Elting Walker ‘92Alison Sellin Weiskopf ‘81Immediate Past PresidentCecilia Hanke Wolfson ‘90

THE BLUE DOORS

EDITORIAL cOMMITTEE

Lisa Grunwald Adler ‘77Cristina Roig Morris ‘82Darrel FrostSue Mathews

OffIcE Of INSTITUTIONAL

ADVANcEMENT

Sue MathewsDirector of Institutional AdvancementSherrie Streit AgerAssociate Director of Institutional AdvancementZoë Gerry BullardDirector of Special EventsDarrel FrostDirector of CommunicationsInger KarlssonCampaign AssistantAlissa Kinney Associate Director of CommunicationsLaura Davis Stahl ’94Director of Alumnae RelationsElisabeth TiulescuDirector of Analysis and Data Management

64 THE BLUE DOORS

The Nightingale-Bamford School 20 East 92nd Street New York, NY 10128www.nightingale.org

Documents

THE BLUE DOORS 1 Nightingale- Bamford School Volume 5 Issue