Avon Old Farms — William J. Kegley

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From left to right: Frank Reid Henry Griffin Peter Murray Bill Kegley Bernard Hammonds Walter Hopp Verne Priest John Betti Ernie Dahm

PREFACE

Bill Kegley has been continuously employed at Avon Old Farms since August 4, 1924.

He is the one person who has been involved with

all the phases of the School, including the construction under the watchful eye of Mrs. Riddle, the headmasterships of Froelicher, Kammerer and Stabler, the Army interlude in the mid '40's when the School was used as a rehabilitation hospital for blind soldiers, the re-opening of the School in 1949 under Don Pierpont and presently, the headmastership of George Trautman.

It has been my intent over the past four years to chronicle

the history of Avon old Farms in serial fashion in various issues of the Avonian.

The articles, entitled

"Kegley Notes", are the result of dis-

cussions I have had with Bill about the different phases of the School.

I have endeavored to preserve the flavor of the various events and stories just as he remembers them.

Beyond the eight articles bound in this

volume, I anticipate many more discussions with Bill Kegley and subsequent articles in the Avonian.

Seth Mendell Director of Alumni Affairs

Avon Old Farms Avon, Connecticut April 30, 1974

KEGLEY NOTES

Mrs. Riddle was born in Salem, Ohio, the daughter of Alfred Atmore and Ada (Brooks) Pope. As a young girl she attended Miss Porter's School in Farmington and fell in love with the green Connecticut hills and countryside. After graduating from Miss Porter's she spent a year traveling in Europe.

From childhood, Mrs. Riddle has been fascinated by the grace and beauty of architectural forms. At the early age of fourteen she designed, with the help of Sanford White, an internationally famous architect of the time, a home for her parents in Farmington. After its construction in 1900, the family home was known, as it is today, as Hillstead.

Returning from Europe, she decided to make a career of architecture and spent the next three years gaining practical experience working as an apprentice to some of the leading architects in the United States.

In 1912 Mrs. Riddle opened an office in Farmington, and a year later an office in New York City. At this time she designed the Westover School in Middlebury, Connecticut. The American Architect published pictures of the buildings with the caption, "The work is beautifully designed and beautifully planned . . . The details are very refined and scholarly, and the proportions of the architecture are exceedingly well sustained throughout." The Westover School was followed by the designing of several private homes in New York and Connecticut, and the Hop Brook School in Naugatuck, Connecticut.

As early as 1913 she conceived the idea of founding a boys' school m memory of her father. Between 1914 and 1917 she instructed her agent to purchase 2,750 acres of abandoned farm land along a ridge above the Farmington valley in the towns of Avon and Farmington. However, Mrs. Riddle's plans to build a boys' school were interrupted by World War I, and her marriage to the Honorable John Wallace Riddle.

In May of 1915 Mrs. Riddle was aboard the British Cunard passenger liner "Lusitania," which was torpedoed twice by a German submarine and sunk off the Southern coast of Ireland. The great ship, listing heavily to port, sunk in eighteen minutes. of the 1,950 passengers and crew on board, 1,198 were lost ! Mrs. Riddle, a life jacket strapped to her waist, following the lead of a companion, jumped from "B" deck into the water just as the ship rolled over and slipped beneath the surface.

Struggling in the cold, swirling water, she realized in a wave of panic that she was being swept between the decks of the ship. Blinded, gagging, buffeted by debris in the water, she tried to fight her way from beneath

Mrs. Riddle at early age designs Hillstead

1912 she designs Westover School

1917 purchases 2,700 acres of abandoned land

the decks to the surface.

A blow on the head knocked her unconscious. Moments later, Mrs. Riddle opened her eyes to find herself floating in the midst of hundreds of frantic, screaming, shouting humans. Her life jacket had brought her to the surface!

Again she lost consciousness. The second time she opened her eyes there were only a few people around her, clinging to bits of debris in the water.

She managed to clutch an oar from one of the boats.

Still suffering from the blow on her head, she lapsed into unconsciOUSness for the third time. When she awoke, Mrs. Riddle found herself in the captain's cabin of the rescue ship "Julia". She was the last survivor to be picked up by the ship, and actually because of her unconscious state, had been placed on deck with the dead. However, a traveling companion, also a survivor, recognized her and frantically enlisted the help of two of the crew. After several hours of artificial respiration and massage, Mrs. Riddle began to breathe normally and eventually to regain consciousness. The following day from Queenstown, on the Irish coast, she cabled her mother in Farmington of her safety.

On May 6, 1916 she married the Honorable John wallace Riddle, a graduate of Harvard and the Columbia Law School. Mr. Riddle had distinguished himself in the diplomatic service. In 1903 he served in Egypt, 1905 and 1906 he served as Envoy extraordinary and Minister plenipotentiary to Romania and Serbia. On the eve of World War I, he was the United States Ambassador to Russia. At the time of his marriage to Theodate Pope Atmore, he was assigned to the staff of the Military Intelligence Branch of the War College in Washington. In 1921 he and Mrs. Riddle journeyed to South America to fill the post of U.S. Ambassador to Argentina.

Shortly after their arrival in Buenos Aires, Mrs. Riddle had to return to the United States. She had designed the Roosevelt House in New York City for the Woman's Roosevelt Memorial Association, and as the construction neared completion, certain alterations became necessary, requiring her presence in New York. It was on this return trip that Mrs. Riddle suffered her second unpleasant experience at sea. Due to some mechanical defect in the steering mechanism the ship nearly capsized. As a result of this experience, her doctor recommended that she not return to Argentina.

It was during this period of separation from her husband that she finalized her plans for the boys' preparatory school in the Farmington

valley she had started eight years before. In 1922, ground was broken and the railroad station was the first building to be constructed.

Mrs. Riddle died August 30, 1946. She was a member of the American Institute of Architects, National Institute of Social Sciences, the Mediaeval Academy of America, The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Honorary Member of the Architectural Club of New Haven and the Sociedad Central De Arquitectos of Buenos Aires. In 1927 she was awarded the Robinson Memorial Medal for excellence in architecture. In 1940, a silver medal and diploma were awarded her at the fifth Pan-American Congress of Architects in Montevideo.

Mr. Kegley first came to Avon Old Farms, August 4, 1924. At that time there were 325 workmen busily erecting the school buildings. The water tower and what is now the chapel, then the carpenter shop, were the only completed buildings. The foundations for the quadrangle buildings were in, and the quadrangle itself was piled high with fifteen feet of sand from the excavations.

During the winter months, from mid-November until March, all work stopped, due to the condition of the roads. Mr. Kegley recalls that the Town of Avon had no money, equipment or men to keep up the Town roads. There was no pavement and the roads being dirt were deeply rutted and impassable much of the time due to snow and mud. The workmen came from all the surrounding towns: Simsbury, Farmington, Unionville, Collinsville, to name a few, and from as far as Manchester and Torrington.

This work force came each day in trucks, what today we would call a "car pool." In each town there would be several workmen owning trucks, and they brought laborers to Avon Old Farms in the morning and took them home at night. Consequently, in the winter months with the Town roads impassable, work on the school buildings stopped.

In the spring of 1925 the quadrangle was a beehive of activity. One hundred and twenty quarrymen and stonecutters were cutting and dressing stone. After the stone had been hauled from the quarry, stone masons were building the arches and walls of the four quadrangle buildings; and carpenters were setting the timbers to support the floors and the roof. What Mr. Kegley called "Old Timers" were hewing the great beams for the ceilings and rafters with adz and broad ax, right in the quadrangle. Altogether, 550 men were employed during the summer of 1925. With the rafters in place, split

1922 railroad station first building erected

Mr. Kegley arrives at Avon Old Farms

Winter

Spring 1925 quadrangle takes shape

saplings were nailed across them to hold the slate for the roofs. The slate was wired to the saplings and set in cement. Mr. Kegley pointed out that the roofs on the quadrangle buildings were put on by local workmen who had learned the art from a group of Cockney workers Mrs. Riddle had brought from England to put the slate roof on the railroad station in 1922 .

Of the buildings in the quadrangle, Eagle, Pelican and Elephant were finished before Diogenes. The Diogenes tower was the last structure to be completed in the quadrangle. Originally the buildings were to be of brick like the water tower and the chapel, with stone used only for the archways, doorways and window lintels and sills. When the quarrymen found such a great quantity of stone so close to the school, Mrs. Riddle decided to use stone entirely. The quarry, now a pond, was on the left as you approached the school from the Town of Avon. The quarry was ninety-three feet deep and Mr. Kegley explained that a pump run by a gasoline engine (the engine is still in the powerhouse), had to be started every morning at four o'clock to pump the water out, so work could begin at eight. The stone cuttings and debris from the quarry were used to pave several roads up through the woods to the quadrangle over which trucks as well as horse and oxen drawn wagons carried the stones for the buildings. Also, much of this small rock was used to pave the Avon Town roads leading to the school, - especially the one across the flats which was a real mud bath.

Mrs. Riddle was in evidence at the school everyday, staying, Mr. Kegley recalls, anywhere from two to eight hours. The activity must have been fascinating to watch; the quadrangle with its piles of sand, great tree trunks being drawn in by horse and oxen to be hewn into beams, stone masons working up on the scaffoldings and great booms sticking up above the tree tops hoisting the rafters into place and lifting up the slate for the roofs.

The ring of the stonecutter's chisel, the sound of the carpenter's adz and hammer, the creak of the winch and boom, the sputter of the early combustion engine, the grunts and snorts of the draft animals and the shouts of the workmen all must have echoed through the woods.

1926 Powerhouse completed

The powerhouse was completed in 1926 to supply the quadrangle with electricity and heat. The following year the school opened with fifty boys.

The refectory was not yet complete, and meals were served in what was the old gym above the kitchen and what is now the Barnes Lecture Gallery.

The food was sent up to the dining room by a dumb waiter that still exists by the back door of the kitchen.

The opening of the school in the fall of 1927 was actually brought about by the Town of Avon. During the years of construction, Mrs. Riddle was not required to pay town property taxes on the school property. However, in 1926, the Town of Avon was desperate for money, and First Selectman Joseph Alsop summoned Mrs. Riddle to court on the grounds that the school was not tax exempt until it was in operation as a school. The case, handled out of court, was decided in favor of the Town of Avon and Mrs. Riddle, in order to avoid payment of taxes, opened the school quickly m the fall of 1927.

On the advice of Dr. Elliott, president of Harvard University, Mrs. Riddle engaged Mr. Stephen Cabot of St. George's School in Rhode Island to organize a faculty and select the first group of students for Avon Old Farms. Mr. Francis Mitchell Froelicher from a country day school outside of Philadelphia, was selected as headmaster. Mr. Froelicher was known for his progressive views on education. (His nephew, Chuck Froelicher, was on the Avon faculty in 1948 when Don Pierpont reopened the school, and IS currently the headmaster of Denver Academy in Denver, Colorado.)

The school opened with fifty boys in six forms (7-12 grades.) In place of sports the boys worked in shifts on the Hillstead Farm, under the careful direction of farmer Dorsey. Bill Kegley recalls how groups of boys were driven to Farmington after classes in the afternoon to do the evening chores around the farm. They spent the night at the farm with Mrs. Dorsey clucking over them like a mother hen. She fed them supper, made sure they did their school work before going to bed and got them up in the morning for breakfast. After the morning chores, they were driven back to Avon in time for classes.

The only construction on the campus during 1927 was the completion of the refectory. Contrary to the many stories about Mrs. Riddle and the razing and rebuilding of the refectory roof to suit her, it was not the refectory roof that was rebuilt but the roof over the Barnes Gallery (the old gym above the kitchen). It was rebuilt not because she did not like it, but because it leaked. Bill explained that the original roof was put on with wooden shingles and in the winter it leaked so badly that in the spring the shingles were replaced with tile.

Another event in 1927 was the purchasing of the Towpath Lodge by Mrs. Riddle. The Lodge, built of white stucco and wooden beams with a tile roof is on the right after you pass through the school entrance gate on

School Open

1927

Mr.

Froelicher first headmaster

Boys work at H illstead Farm

Old Farms Road coming from the Town of Avon. At the time the school was being constructed, the Lodge belonged to Sherman Eddy, superintendent of the Ensign Bickford Company in Avon.

Mr. Eddy lived in Avon center, and used the Lodge in the summer and fall as a country house. The surrounding grounds on both sides of the road were filled with hundreds of flowering plants and shrubs, and the small pond south of the building was stocked with trout. On Sunday afternoons Bill tells of the countless sightseers from Hartford and nearby towns who came to see the colorful gardens and the carefully manicured lawns.

At times, Mr. Eddy rented Towpath Lodge for church and insurance company gatherings. The ground floor was set up with several cooking stoves and eating areas with tables and benches so groups of picnickers could prepare their food and eat. Upstairs there was a hardwood dance floor with a loft at one end for the orchestra. Bill well remembers how on numerous summer evenings the music and laughter from the dance floor could clearly be heard in the school quadrangle.

Mrs. Riddle was not happy at all with what she called a "dance hall" so close to the school she was building. She was concerned that the academic atmosphere of Avon Old Farms would be affected by these raucous gatherings. Consequently she instructed her agent to purchase the entire property from Sherman Eddy. The transaction was eventually made at a considerable price, while Mrs. Riddle was travelling abroad. When she returned in the spring of 1928 Towpath Lodge was converted into a stable for the school's polo ponies and riding horses.

1929 Change in the Administration

Spring 1930 Dr. Kammerer becomes 2nd Head Master

September 1929 saw a change in the administration at Avon old Farms.

Mr. Francis Mitchell Froelicher, headmaster since 1927, left to become headmaster of the Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Several members of the Avon faculty left with Mr. Froelicher and joined him at the Fountain Valley School: Mr. Brown (Math), Mr. Perry (French), Mr. Kitson (Music) and Mr. Langdon.

With the fall opening of school all but underway when Mr. Froelicher left, Mr. Cherry, the academic Dean, became the acting headmaster of Avon Old Farms until the Board of Directors could appoint a new headmaster. It was not until the following spring that the Reverend Percy Gamble Kammerer of Christ Church Cathedral in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was selected to head Avon Old Farms. Dr. Kammerer took up residence on the Avon campus March 28, 1930.

Avon Old Farms School graduated its first class in 1930. Unfortunately, Bill has not been able to locate a picture of this first graduating class. However, he has unearthed pictures of the student body and class of 1932 and the student body and class of 1934. He has done a fantastic job of naming practically every boy in these two pictures. I don't see how he does it after almost forty years!

Bill told me the other day about the Sunday afternoon teas that Mrs. Riddle used to give over at Hillstead in Farmington. She used to invite a class over at a time, the freshmen one week, the sophomores the next and so on. When it came time for the seniors to be guests for Sunday tea, Mrs. Riddle would include some girls from Miss Porter's to brighten up the afternoon.

First class at Avon graduates

Mrs. Riddle hosts Sunday teas at Hillstead

The teas were very proper and the Avon boys, dressed in striped pants, dark double-breasted jackets and black bow ties, were transported to Farmington in school cars. The tea was served by Mrs. Riddle's two butlers.

Earnest and Alexis. It might be possible on a sunny spring afternoon to slip out to the lawn for a short stroll with one of the girls before the cars returned to carry the boys back to Avon.

Also on the weekends were the polo games played down on the school's polo field just north of the old Tillotson farm house or what is now Merrit's farm. When the field was not being used for polo an old Scotsman by the name of Findley would graze his sheep on it. But on weekends polo teams would arrive, ponies and all, from schools such as Lawrenceville and Exeter.

Avon had eighteen polo ponies stabled on Old Farms Road in the old Towpath Lodge. Mr.]. S. Iverson, estate manager of the school's property, coached Avon's polo team.

Polo at Avon

Mrs. Riddle's original plan for the Avon campus called for the completion of three quadrangles. However, as you may recall from an earlier "Kegley Notes", she was forced to halt construction and open the school quickly in 1927. The only construction to take place after this date was the completion of the refectory.

Avon campus to have three quadrangles

The Village Green quadrangle, partially formed by the refectory and bank (now the library), was to have been completed with a gate house, a guest house, a chapel and cloisters. On the site now occupied by the gym or Pierpont Activities Center there was to have been a large library overlooking the Farmington Valley and Avon Mountain.

Library

The third quadrangle (the foundations are actually in the ground) 路/Vas to have been between the power house and the existing quadrangle of Diogenes, Pelican, Eagle and Elephant dormitories.

Chapel

Bill explained that Mrs. Riddle fully intended to finish construction of the campus, and in the meantime, made temporary arrangements. Chapel was held in the large room (now two classrooms) to the left, as you enter the quadrangle through Diogenes archway. Services were held here from 1927 until 1940.

With no new construction on the campus, the headmaster, Mr. Brooke Stabler, who replaced Dr. Kammerer, purchased in 1940 from the Wykeham Rise School in Washington, Connecticut, a Hodgson Portable Chapel. The Wykeham Rise School was closing and Mr. Stabler was able, through friends , to obtain the structure at a nominal price. This building, dismantled piece by piece by members of the Avon old Farms ground crew, under the direction of the school's mechanic, was loaded and trucked from Washington to Avon.

1944 Campus leased to U.S. Army

1949 Don Pierpont opens the school as fo urth headmaster

Infirmary

The chapel was reassembled on the eXlstmg foundations between the power house and Elephant dormitory. It was used for religious services and school meetings from 1940 until 1944, when Mrs. Riddle closed the school and leased the campus to the United States Army for use as a rehabilitation center for the blind.

Shortly after Mr. Pierpont reopened the school in 1949, he had the carpenter's shop at the entrance of the school next to the water tower renovated as a chapel. It was, and still is called the Chapel of Jesus Christ the Carpenter.

The vacated portable chapel from Wykeham Rise School, which since 1956 has faced the newall-weather tennis courts behind Elephant dormitory, was turned into an art studio. In 1962 the art studio was moved down to quarters in the upper garage and Bill Kegley moved his emporium from the power house to the Hodgson portable, where it is now.

Bill went on to say that the infirmary was another 'temporary' building to be built on the Avon campus. When the school opened in 1927, the infirmary was located in the master's apartment on the west end of Diogenes dormitory, where the Cochranes lived for a number of years, and the Billings live now. In 1932 it was moved to the second floor of Elephant on the south end. The shower room at that end of the corridor was equipped with

a stove and used as a kitchen for the infirmary.

Mrs. Riddle, insisted all the floors in the dorms be waxed several times a year with a mixture of carnauba and bees wax. The carnauba wax came in solid blocks and had to be melted before the bees wax could be added.

The mixture then had to be applied hot to the floors with burlap. Once hardened, according to Bill, it could be polished to a high sheen.

On one such occasion a janitor was melting the carnauba wax on the stove in the infirmary kitchen. He left the pot on the hot burner and went on about his work elsewhere. The wax began to boil in the pot and bubbled over onto the hot coils filling the entire south end of Elephant dormitory with thick acrid smoke before the negligent janitor returned. Bill said that everything had to be sent out to be cleaned and the ceilings in the immediate area had to be redone.

Because of the 'fire' Mrs. Riddle decided to move the infirmary out of Elephant dorm. Consequently, at this time in the early thirties, a temporary building was constructed as an infirmary on the existing foundations across from the powerhouse. There has been since that time speculation about a permanent infirmary building in a different location. However, the temporary building erected under the direction of Mrs. Riddle is still in use today.

One last note, Bill first set up his emporium in Elephant dormitory in the double room off the foyer on the second floor. After the infirmary moved out, due to the 'fire', he moved down the hall to those vacated quarters. When the Army left, and the school reopened in the late forties, he set up shop in the classroom to the left in Diogenes archway - the one that had been used for chapel services. From here it was down to the powerhouse, as mentioned earlier, and then to its present location in the Hodgson portable.

Verne Priest came to Avon Old Farms in 1923. Mrs. Riddle, having purchased 3,000 acres of woodland in Avon and Farmington, was in search of someone to manage the forests. She contacted Professor Woolsey, the head of the Forestry Department at Yale, who recommended a guide in the Maine woods by the name of Priest.

Mrs. Riddle contacted Horace Priest, who was Verne's father, and in 1923 the Priest family moved into the old Judd house on Old Farms Road across from Beaver Pond. Verne and his brother, Irving, worked with their

Verne Priest arrives at Old Farms in 1923.

father in the woods. After the death of his father, in the mid-twenties, Mrs. Riddle appointed Verne Head Forester of the school's woodlands.

Verne supervises construction of two log cabins

In 1927, or soon thereafter, Verne went to Maine to obtain logs for the construction of two cabins on the school's property. One was to be a three family dwelling to house school employees and the other a single cabin for Verne and his growing family. Verne supervised the building of the cabins which were located on the north end of the property not far from Lower Walton.

Until his death m 1957, every boy who attended Avon Old Farms knew Verne Priest.

Bill recalls how Verne had charge of the Community Service and five afternoons a week took groups of boys into the woods to work.

Community Service and Cabin Suppers

Verne is best remembered for his camp suppers both down at Lower Walton and at the Nimrod Cabin by Beaver Pond. The suppers were well attended, not only because Verne was an excellent cook, but because they liked to listen to his incredible stories about his father and life in the Maine woods. As a spinner of yarns, he was unsurpassed.

Daniel North, class of '37, wrote down some of Verne's more memorable stories in the 1937 Winged Beaver.

As anyone who attended Avon Old Farms knows, Mrs. Riddle closed the school in June of 1944 and turned the buildings and 200 acres of land over to the United States Army to be used as a rehabilitation hospital for blind soldiers.

Mrs. Riddle had reached this decision in the spring of 1944 after a clash with the Provost, Mr. Brook Stabler. Mr. Stabler, who had held the position of Provost since 1940, had sought to gain a free hand in the administration of the school to meet the changing mood of youth under the impact of World War II. However, Mrs. Riddle was unyielding in her determination that all aspects of student life, dress, athletics, discipline, follow the Deed of Trust to the letter. Consequently, Mr. Stabler tended his resignation and Mrs. Riddle, still distraught over the recent loss of her husband, Mr. John Riddle, announced the closing of the school.

As early as April 1944, Mrs. Riddle had been in contact with the U.S. Army in Washington concerning the use of the school as a rehabilitation hospital. The Trinity College campus in Hartford and parts of the Yale

campus in New Haven were at that time being used by the Army to rehabilitate soldiers and she was greatly pleased when the Army expressed a definite interest in the use of Avon Old Farms.

Immediately following commencement exercises in early June, the fIrst Army detachment under the command of Colonel Frederic Thorne, MC, one of the Army's outstanding ophthalmologists, arrived on the campus. The maintenance department was taken over by the Post Engineers at Bradley Field and only Ernie Dahm, the electrician, and Bill Kegley remained from the previous staff. Kegley was transferred from his emporium duties to the fire department under the direction of the Post Engineers at Bradley Field.

A certain Mr. Wick was to be Mrs. Riddle's liaison while the Army was on campus. However, much to the displeasure of the officers in charge, when she visited the campus it was Kegley that showed her around so she could see what was happening. Miss Elizabeth McCarthy, Mrs. Riddle's personal secretary, maintained the school's ' HIes and records in a small ofHce just off the Dean's classroom or Lounge during the Army's stay.

Col. Thorne established his headquarters in what is now the library and complete with switchboard and public address system, it became the nerve center of the old Farms Convalescent Hospital. The military detachment numbered over 200 with an officer cadre of fourteen. The enlisted men lived on the third floors of the dormitories and the ofHcers lived in the quadrangle apartments. The blind soldiers, referred to as trainees, occupied the single rooms on the second floor of the four dormitories and beds were also placed in the "old gym" over the kitchen.

The trainees were sent to Old Farms from Valley Forge Hospital, the Army's processing center for the blind in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. The training period lasted from ten to twelve weeks for each group of trainees.

The actual training was done by civilians from the local area including Hartford, about 175 of them who commuted every day. The blind trainees, approximately 200 to 225 in each group, were taught to care for themselves. i.e., dress, eat, climb stairs, and many activities such as reading braille, typing, gardening, music, weaving, printing and other skills requiring manual dexterity and co-ordination. The Training Division was located in the Dean's House and the training was conducted in the quadrangle classrooms. The Red Cross Unit was stationed in the Headmaster's house.

The Army Engineers made a number of changes and additions to the

K egley transferred from Maintenance to Fire Dept.

Miss McCarthy

Enlisted men live in the dormitories

school. For the prevention of fire an extensive sprinkler system was installed throughout the dormitories and other buildings on the campus. Also , doors were cut through into the quadrangle apartments from each of the floors in the dormitories to give each hall two possible exits in case of fire. To improve the water supply, nine new wells were drilled on the athletic field.

The old wells had been located down from the power house and even though they were deep, 350 to 500 feet, the water from them turned reddish in the summer months. Down by the garage, which was used as the post motor pool, a chicken house with a connecting green house was built for the purpose of training soldiers in those areas. In the circle in front of Diogenes Tower an eighty foot flag pole of Douglas fir, shipped all the way from Washington, was erected. After the Army left and the school reopened in the late forties, the pole was cut down as it was felt by some that it detracted from the beauty of the buildings.

Army engineers make changes and additions to school

In the Refectory several changes were made to accommodate the post personnel. The long oak tables and benches were removed and regulation square Army mess tables, six feet on a side, were used. For direct access to the kitchen, a doorway was cut through from the Refectory proper rather than having to go around through the foyer at the rear. In the front half of the Refectory, the area by the head table, a large oak dance floor was put down for the post dances.

Public

Another addition to the campus was the construction of the swimming pool. When the Old Farms Convalescent Hospital was first in operation, the trainees were bussed into the Hartford YMCA to swim as part of their recreational program. A certain Mr. Johnson, feeling that the blind soldiers should have a pool of their own championed their cause. A public fund drive was held. People were asked to contribute only a dollar, but public sentiment was so strongly behind the project, that in no time the goal of $75,000 was reached and potential donors were asked over the radio not to send any more money.

fund drive for swimming pool

The pool was erected on the site Mrs. Riddle had proposed for the school library and the completion of the Village Green quadrangle. However, she agreed to the site as the pool was to be only a temporary structure to be torn down when the Army left. Consequently, the building housing the pool was built of cinder block, but as there was no money when the Army left, it remained standing until 1964 when the cinder block construction was removed and the pool was incorporated into the Pierpont Gymnasium.

Mrs. Riddle did not live to see the Army leave the school in 1947, as she passed away in August of the previous year. The Army left in September of 1947, too late for the school to reopen for the academic year. The only surviving member of the Board of Directors was Professor Henry Perkins, whose decision it was to reopen the school. After a lengthy search, Don Pierpont of Columbia University was appointed Provost. Under his able direction, a faculty was selected, and a student body assembled. To meet immediate expenses, the quadrangle apartments were temporarily rented to tow nspeople.

In September 1948, Avon Old Farms was officially reopened and the second phase in the life of the school, referred to as the "new school" was underway.

Kegley Notes to be Continued -

Fall 1947 quadrangle apartments rented to townspeople

William

J. Kegley and the school he serves.

> •

50 years