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UPDATE: CURRENT FACULTY AND STAFF
Alice Jane Hinman, Caring about Faculty, Caring about Students: In Memoriam
Alice Jane Hinman in 1946
Holderness School recently lost a very important member of its community. Alice Jane (Behymer) Hinman died on May , , at Forest View Manor in Meredith, NH after a long period of declining health. She was years old and had devoted more than forty years of her very long life to embodying Holderness School’s strongest value: creating a caring community. Alice Jane joined the Holderness community in when at age , she married Ford Benton Hinman, a.k.a. “Fliv,” who had come to the school in after Knowlton Hall burned. The story of their years rebuilding and serving the school is a much loved and often-told tale—one that never fails to inspire. In a Holderness School Today article about Alice Jane and Fliv, author Rick Carey chronicles the way the couple pitched in across all areas of the school. Fliv taught math, served as director of the athletic department, and coached football, hockey, and baseball; Alice
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Jane worked as a secretary to Don Hagerman, and, like other faculty wives, pitched in to keep costs down by sewing costumes and doing laundry. Perhaps most significantly, Alice Jane founded the Holderness School library. Her son, Don Hinman ’, tells us that she took a correspondence course in order to organize it properly and that she volunteered her time for the whole project. “Her reading is that she did the things that had to be done—nothing special,” says Don. We, of course, know differently. In Holderness School awarded the Right Reverend Douglas E. Theuner Award (for significantly increasing and furthering the mission of Holderness School) to the entire Hinman family: posthumously, to Ford B. Hinman, and to Alice Jane, Fliv, and Don, who was Holderness School’s president during the – school year and a Holderness master teacher during a -year teaching career in English. Also included were David Hinman ’, Jane Hinman Ramsay, and Don Hinman’s wife Mary Lou, all of whom were warm and generous members of the Holdernesss residential community for many years. The award notes that the family “through seven decades of hard work and unstinting love have helped to define the identity of the Holderness School as it exists today.” Back in , Alice Jane was the very first profile in the Holderness School Today “Catching Up With” series. To do the essay, Rick Carey and Phil Peck traveled to Vermont to meet with her and her son. In the profile, Rick Carey describes her setting: “the standards for a graceful old age. A snowy-haired picture of ruddy good health…in a wood-scented home filled with books, photos, memories, a contented cat, and plenty of sunlight.” She left an even stronger impression on Phil Peck who had not yet met her, despite knowing the many stories of her behind-thescenes leadership. Knowing that she had
“managed” two headmasters, Edric Weld and Don Hagerman, Phil asked her for advice on what makes a good leader. Her advice to Phil was to be himself and to care about the faculty and staff—a generous and open-hearted response that was enough on its own. Later, she followed up in a hand-written letter. In it, she said, “I have thought a lot about your question, and there is one other thing that I thought might be helpful: be sure to love the unlovable boys.” Today, of course, we would adapt this advice and say, “Love the unlovable students,” and while we don’t think of any of our students as particularly unlovable, Phil Peck to this day values Alice Jane’s advice. “It stands as a reminder to me, and to Holderness, that unconditional, boundless care and love are central to who we are,” he wrote in his May tribute to her. “I hope that we slow down and remember that the work we do…is for naught—unless we remember to care and love.”
HOLDERNESS SCHOOL TODAY | SUMMER 2014
Holderness School Summer 2014 Holderness School Today magazine. F