47. Mary Roxer, ‘96, Eileen Davis, and Betsy Stafford, ‘55

Three generations of Powhatan students, alumna Mary Davis Roxer, her son Liam who will graduate in 2023, and her Aunt Betsy Stafford.

Mary Davis Roxer, ‘96, Eileen Davis and Betsy Stafford, ‘55

It was around two weeks before Shakespeare, and the rehearsal blocks were still rough. It was crossing my mind as director that things should be moving toward fluidity by now. Mary Davis was the principal actor in that day’s scene rehearsals, and she and her partners came out and nailed a difficult scene – well-acted, timing down pat. Mary and I have talked about it since: she remembers it as A Midsummer Night’s Dream; I recall it as Twelfth Night. No matter. I knew from that moment on the play would be fine. Because every year, when one or several actors rose above the hubbub and staked their claim to excellence, that marked the point when the play began to gel. That day I told the class that Mary’s scene was the precursor of things to come and the play would be fine. Thanks to Mary Davis and her fellow actors that year’s play, I recall, went on to be one of the best. Whatever it was.

Mary and her infant Charlie joined me first. We were waiting for her mom Eileen to arrive with her aunt, her dad Blackie’s sister, Betsy

Stafford, who was visiting from California. Betsy was an alumna of Blue Ridge Country Day and three years ahead of her brother Blackie, Mary’s dad, who had passed away years earlier.

Blackie deserves a parenthetical mention here. In one of the standardized tests I had administered over the years, there was the story in the reading section of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to become a physician in America. I knew that Blackie was short for Blackwell, and I finally got around to asking either Blackie or Eileen if the doctor was a relative. I was delighted to find out she was. Just another distinguished connection in the Powhatan community which is a surprise when it comes to light.

Mary was ready for the interview. She said, “When I think of Powhatan, the word I come up with is forever.” She went on to say that three generations of her family had attended school here, beginning with Betsy and Blackie and now represented by current student, son Liam. The family had started in Millwood and followed the school to Boyce. She added that she was much closer to her Powhatan friends and family than she was to those of her high school experience. Mary went on to say that big plays like HMS Pinafore and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, traditional projects like the third grade’s cross-stitch, and overnight field trips in grades three and above underlined and accentuated the hands-on experiences, learning which engaged the senses, and other active learning which occurred daily at Powhatan. She described the process as learning which “…sticks to you.”

I asked her if she had experience with Shakespeare after Powhatan, and Mary said that she had taken a Shakespeare class in high school. Like almost all of her past peers, this proved to be a rewarding and affirming experience. Mary found that her writing ability and prior experience with Shakespeare generally made the course easy. “I felt like I was very well-prepared for college from my Powhatan work.” It’s funny how performing Shakespeare explodes much of the mystery his work inspires.

Mary could remember she started school at Powhatan in second grade, the year after the fire. At that moment in walked Eileen (Mary’s mother) and Aunt Betsy. We had to move a few chairs and a curious box on the table in the Alumni Room to make room. Lying on the open

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box, which appeared full of papers, was a receipt of an estimate from Thompson and Ogden of Berryville to a P. H. Mayo to build a house for I believe it was $7,000.00. We all agreed it was probably for the initial building of Powhatan. The document was dated 1887.

Everyone settled in and Betsy began. She had attended Blue Ridge Country Day. She described her class in the seventh grade as “six girls and Tommy Dunning.” In the eighth grade it was just six girls because Tommy had left for boarding school. She talked about the Blue Goose, a name she credited to her brother Blackie, the bus which wound all over Jefferson and Clarke counties until it picked up Bobby Wyatt. When you arrived at the Little Red Schoolhouse in Millwood, you were met by Mr. Bradley, the Headmaster, (whom she described as “such a force”) and “really good teachers.” In the main room the students would gather around little tables and begin the day by all singing songs – Betsy remembered them as from Gilbert and Sullivan – before beginning their morning academics. The whole gestalt was so like a family. Betsy sighed, “It was great.”

At this point the word ‘magical’ appeared. Betsy and Mary described their interrelated school experiences that way. Eileen chimed in enthusiastically with agreement.

Betsy described Mr. Bradley as “really an English teacher who made us all feel special.” He would meet his class in his office and would assign one or two wordy paragraphs, which the class would have to reduce into a precis of just a few sentences. It was a tough piece of homework that kept her up late at night, but it challenged her to appreciate good writing and encouraged her on the path to a career as an editor, working for Scribners, Harcourt Brace, and Sunset Magazine.

Ms. Stafford described the whole academic experience as classic liberal arts (Beethoven playing softly in the background during lunch). She went on to mention – after again noting how good her teachers were (“I don’t know how he found them” – meaning Mr. Bradley) – that she had a superb French teacher, whose name she could no longer recall, who was a real polymath.

Mary added at this point that she had Fabienne Modesitt, our own polymath, who spoke or knew seven languages, for French. Madame

Modesitt accomplished so much, much of it conversationally, that Mary described her high school experience with the language as “a piece of cake.” Much of that surety came from the homework she gave. Mary pointed out how well Powhatan assigned homework which secured and enhanced lessons learned at school.

Mary added that programs such as Winter Tuesday cemented a mind/body curriculum which led to a healthy development of life skills. Eileen pointed out that this total climate for education of the mind and body had been one of the principal reasons she and Blackie had enrolled Mary and her brother Tommy in Powhatan. Betsy said the same for Blue Ridge, which in addition to fine academics, gave her opportunities to do track and field, play football, and learn to bowl. Mary said that sports at Powhatan taught independence and opportunity. She noted, “It was a long way from the locker room to the fields, more than enough time to get into trouble.” Sports and programs such as Winter Tuesday, many of which boys and girls did together – along with class field trips, taught kids how to interact in the best possible way with the world. Mary can still recall the final instruction, “Have your Powhatan manners on,” as the class would leave out of the door. All three noted that there was no difference in how girls or boys were treated.

We stayed with the theme of equal opportunity for women for a while and how Powhatan and Blue Ridge Country Day sent the clear message to these women that there wasn’t anything they could not do. Eileen pointed out that Blackie had been in Drew Gilpin’s class, who as Drew Gilpin Faust, eminent historian, went on to become the first female president of Harvard University. Mary quickly added that her son Liam currently had Mrs. Ryan Gilpin, Dr. Faust’s cousin-in-law, as his teacher. Connections. Connections.

Betsy Stafford then stated that the seventh and eighth grades at Blue Ridge Country Day were the best years in school she ever had. She cited the “intense report cards,” which drew a chorus of “they still are” from Eileen and Mary, the learning we all did on a school bus, and the “Thank you, Ma’ams,” the series of small bumps on Old Chapel Road coming into Boyce that the kids would beg their driver to speed over so they could all fly into the air. They’re still there. And kids still beg the driver to hit them full blast.

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The bus caused Eileen to reflect on Blackie reuniting with Millie Hummer, his old bus driver, at the end of the lane as she slowed to pick up Mary and Tommy one morning. Millie was returning for her second incarnation as Charles Town bus driver. They had a grand reunion.

Betsy concluded that part of the magic of Blue Ridge Country Day was it could have been very strict, but it wasn’t. It was an island – very open and child-centered. “Just like Powhatan,” Eileen punctuated. “There was automatic trust built right into the culture.” Mary said, “If you needed to go to the bathroom, you just got up and went.” That was certainly my experience. Kids would rise and indicate by gesture or quick remark that they needed to use the restroom, and I’d always signal my assent. “When you visited the school, the kids made noise. They moved around,” Eileen noted. “You could see good behavior and cooperation being modeled everywhere.” Betsy and Mary both commented on Powhatan’s Honor System which was unstructured, informal, and authentic. No oaths, no student courts, just a foundational expectation that your work was your own, an expectation that all students acceded to nearly all the time.

“We were respected,” Betsy said and Mary agreed. Betsy went on to say in her experience that there was no bullying, and Mary added that with the arrival of the advisor/advisee system students were actively coached in toleration where they got the vocabulary and skills to inculcate that virtue of civility. I then asked if that feeling made classmates into siblings of a sort. No one used that term, but all parties agreed that the school with its small classes, often furnished with a couch or bean bags in the room, was like family.

That family leitmotif bled into all areas. Mary remembered attending the funeral of schoolmate Gordon Johnson, where I gave the eulogy. I told her that it had been the hardest thing up to that point in my life I had ever done. I have incredible NES, Naked Exposure Syndrome, commonly called stage fright. Over the years at Powhatan, I worked on my stage fright through speeches, performances, and deliveries, and by the time of Gordon’s funeral, it was manageable. It continued with effort to lessen over the years so that in December, 2017, I was able to officiate my mother’s funeral. Mary said because of Chapel Talks and acting she too gained poise and comfort with public speaking. So, when

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her father Blackie passed away, she was able to officiate at his funeral too. More gifts that Powhatan has given us all to make us more present with the world in which we live.

Betsy affirmed the same perspective and made the point again about schools and success, “The key which Mr. Bradley accomplished brilliantly was finding the right teachers.” She then went on to say that she was her class Salutatorian and added that Blue Ridge Country Day, in addition to public speaking, taught her the lifelong skills of how to write and how to study. Eileen marveled at the scope of it all: an elementary school which crowns its eighth graders with Shakespeare – and they “Get it.” “We would watch the play, and the kids all knew their parts. They understood what they were saying! Then you’d come out with the world’s biggest smile. And the audience would erupt.”

In so many ways, these three women, Mary Davis, her mother Eileen, and Aunt Betsy Stafford, captured the essence and foundations of the school begun in 1948 and continuing today. They were personifications of the hopes, grace, and imprint Powhatan has left with us all. Liam joined us from class after dismissal so that he could ride home with his mom, baby brother, grandmother, and Aunt Betsy. Upon leaving, he stopped, looked me in the eye, and shook my hand. Some things are forever.

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High O’er the Lonely Hills (Dawn)

by T. H. Ingham

High o’er the lonely hills Black turns to gray Birdsong the valley fills Mists fold away Gray wakes to green again Beauty is seen again Gold and serene again Dawneth the day

So, o’er the hills of life Stormy forlorn Out of the cloud and strife Sunrise is born Swift grows the light for us Ended is night for us Soundless and bright for us Breaketh God’s morn

Hear we no beat of drums Fanfare nor cry When Christ the herald comes Quietly nigh Splendor He makes on earth Color awakes on earth Suddenly breaks on earth Light from the sky

Bid then farewell to sleep Rise up and run! What though the hill be steep? Strength’s in the sun Now shall you find at last Night’s left behind at last And for mankind at last Day has begun!

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