Centennial PALLIUM:1940-1965

PALLIUM THE MAGAZINE OF CANTERBURY SCHOOL The Second Centennial Issue: 1940-1965 VOL. 32, NO. 2

PALLIUM Vol. 32, No. 2

2016

Upcoming Events

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Canterbury’s Trustees: 1940-1965

By Lou Mandler Canterbury’s original five directors helped realize the School's founding. During the next 25 years, trustees played an important role in providing funds to expand the physical plant and improve the lives of the faculty.

Headmasters Hume and Sheehan: 1940-1965

By Marc Vanasse ’73 Canterbury’s second quarter century began with Hume in charge, but he had only eight more years to cement his legacy. After Hume’s death in 1948, Walter Sheehan took over Canterbury’s reins and worked tirelessly to leave his imprint on the school he would lead for 25 years.

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The Faculty: 1940-1965

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Canterbury’s Campus: 1940-1965

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By Wright Danenbarger In this article, Wright Danenbarger, Dean of Faculty, chronicles a few of the most “necessary” and memorable teachers of Canterbury’s second quarter century.

Who are these men and what made them so necessary and memorable?

By Bryan Kiefer Stymied by war shortages and a lack of money, Nelson Hume was forced to put his plans for increasing the size of the physical plant on hold. His successor Walter Sheehan, in partnership with the trustees, raised funds to construct major facilities to accommodate a growing student body.

The Chapel: 1940-1965

By Bryan Kiefer with Lou Mandler While the expanded Chapel of Our Lady made a major statement about the School’s growth, the interior saw important additions of church artwork, including new stained glass windows and statues by artists of note.

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The Student Body: 1940-1965

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Student Life at Canterbury: 1940-1965

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By Lou Mandler What was the makeup of the student body and how did it change during Canterbury’s second quarter century?

By Kathy Bolster As Canterbury’s second 25 years began, life on the hill remained fairly unchanged.

But when the U.S. entered the War in Europe, the daily lives of Nelson Hume’s faculty and students were altered dramatically. What did Hume do to lead the School during this crucial time? And, after Hume’s death in 1948, what did Walter Sheehan do to improve the lives of Canterbury students?

Athletics at Canterbury: 1940-1965

By Lou Mandler Headmasters Hume and Sheehan firmly believed that athletics was an important component of a boy’s education. How did they build the athletic program to assure that all boys participated in a physical activity?

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Canterbury Kicks Off Capital Campaign

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Society of Alumni Hosts NYC Gathering

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Class Notes

The Canterbury Moment: The Time is Now, The Day is Here.

The Society of Alumni Pays Tribute to Tom and Betsy Sheehy.

News, photos, and obituaries.

Women of Canterbury Centennial Dinner April 29 Grandparents’ Day May 4 6:00 p.m.

Women of Canterbury Centennial Dinner April 29 6:00 p.m.

Parents’ Weekend May 6 - 7 Reception to honor Tom & Betsy Sheehy May 6 6:00 p.m.

Canterbury Medal Dinner May 13 6:30 p.m.

Graduation Day May 27 Reunion Weekend June 10 - 12 Canterbury School, founded in 1915 by Roman Catholic laymen, is a coeducational, boarding and day school of approximately 335 students, grades 9-12, PG. The Roman Catholic commitment of the School remains central.

Canterbury School is a non-profit institution that seeks and admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin, and does not discriminate in the administration of its programs and policies.

The Canterbury Observer is a regular feature of the PALLIUM. It is a forum for any and all alumni, faculty, and friends of Canterbury to share their thoughts and interests. Views do not necessarily express the philosophy of Canterbury School.

Editors: Marc Vanasse ’73, Lou Mandler Photographer, Designer: Marc Vanasse ’73 Cover photo: Groundbreaking for the addition to the original gymnasium in 1964.

How to Reach Us

The Pallium encourages its readers to communicate with the School.

Mail: Pallium Editor, Canterbury School, 101 Aspetuck Avenue, New Milford, CT 06776 E-Mail: pallium@cbury.org Fax: (available 24 hours a day): 860-350-4425 Call: 860-210-3800 (Switchboard) 1-800-526-1710 www.cbury.org

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By Lou Mandler

Canterbury’s Trustees 1940-1965 Canterbury’s original five directors helped realize the School’s founding. During the next 25 years, trustees played an important role in providing funds to expand the physical plant and improve the lives of the faculty.

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uring the second quarter century, the make-up of the Board of Trustees changed significantly, and the School continued to be financially challenged while nevertheless making profound changes in campus facilities, increasing benefits for the faculty, and taking steps to establish an endowment for the School.

In 1941, the Board of Trustees consisted of Carlton Hayes, Terence Carmody, James Cox Brady, John Burke, Hubert McDonnell, founding president Henry Havemeyer and headmaster Nelson Hume. As stated in the previous issue of the PALLIUM, Hubert McDonnell had been an especially crucial leader in the late 1930s, shepherding the School through financial difficulties and making significant contributions in other ways. He replaced Clarence Mackay as the third member of the Executive Committee, joining Henry Havemeyer and Nelson Hume.

McDonnell continued to be a strong and visionary trustee, serving as a vice president until 1950.

Leadership during the 1940s was still in the hands of Henry Havemeyer, and he and Hume 2

continued to exchange frequent letters discussing School matters.

Board meetings were not held regularly during the War years from June of 1941 to May of 1946. In 1950, Havemeyer relinquished the role of chair although he remained honorary chairman until 1964.

Terence Carmody’s son Francis Carmody ’25 became chair in 1950 and led the Board until 1959 when Hubert McDonnell’s son Donal ’39 took over as president, continuing in that position until 1974.

When regular Board meetings resumed, they were generally held in New York City at John Burke’s office at B. Altman & Co. In January of 1963, the Board meeting was held at Fortune Peter Ryan’s Royal McBee Corporation then in Francis Carmody’s office at Whitman, Ransom & Coulson. In September of 1945, Hume began a campaign to have an annual meeting held at the School, because he felt it important that trustees see the School. In the spring of 1946, he succeeded in having the annual meeting of the Corporation and of the trustees in New Milford on Graduation Day. However, by the spring of 1947, Hume advocated

Francis T. Carmody, President of the Board of Trustees from 1946-1959; trustee from 1946-1965.

In September of 1945, Hume began a campaign to have an annual meeting held at the School, because he felt it important that trustees see the School. making the on-campus meeting on a day other than Graduation.

In the March 1949 meeting, second Headmaster Walter Sheehan established that one meeting a year would be held on Canterbury’s campus. In October 1955, a fall meeting was held at the School. Francis Carmody wrote to the trustees that the meeting “is somewhat of an experiment, it is hoped that by setting the date for Homecoming Day all of the trustees will turn out for the meeting and have an opportunity to visit and inspect the School, which several have not seen for several years.

It is impossible to appreciate the condition and progress of the School without at least an occasional personal visit.” The day would begin with a meeting at the Headmaster’s apartment and end with a Gunnery football game.

“Fortunately for the School, Messrs Havemeyer, McDonnell, and Burke have expressed their willingness to continue as members of the Board so that we will continue to have the benefit of their mature judgment and experience.”

–Francis T. Carmody, Board President In September of 1948, after Nelson Hume’s death, Walter Sheehan attended the first Board meeting as Head in New York City. Henry Havemeyer, Hubert McDonnell, John Burke, Carlton Hayes, and Francis Carmody were present with Tom Krug being absent. New trustees nominated were Fortune Peter Ryan ’29, Gerard Smith ’31, and May Hume, Nelson Hume’s widow. May continued as a Board member throughout this quarter century and beyond.

In the first years after the death of Dr. Hume and the succession of Walter Sheehan, the makeup of the Board began to change significantly as the School’s founders and early trustees resigned or died, and more alumni became trustees. Clarence Mackay had died in 1938, and James A. Farrell resigned in September 1940. In August of 1943, Terence Carmody died, and Carlton Hayes left the Board in 1949. Hubert McDonnell articulated the sea change in trustees in a letter after he had resigned as vice president of the Board. In September of 1950, he wrote to Sheehan, “What impressed me most about the present set-up is that the Board of Trustees is being filled up with young Canterbury graduates, who know what it means to have attended that fine school. The old fellows can sit around as scenery, but the young fellows will, of course, do the job.”

After Havemeyer, McDonnell, and Burke resigned their offices on the Board in 1949, Francis Carmody wrote, “Fortunately for the School, Messrs Havemeyer, McDonnell, and Burke have expressed their willingness to continue as members of the Board so that we will continue to have the benefit of their mature judgment and experience.”

A few years later, when John Burke resigned as a trustee in March of 1956, he did so while declaring his loyalty to the School. He said, “There is too much of my heart on deposit in the School to let me lose my interest in it.” He then referenced the lunette in the chapel in memory of his son Michael. The Board elected him Trustee Emeritus in the March 1956 meeting. Hubert McDonnell had also been elected Trustee Emeritus upon his resignation in 1954.

Sheehan wrote to Carmody in November of 1949 about the trustees of his new school, “I appreciate greatly the interest of the Board, particularly that of the younger members, for it has been my experience that wherever the Board of Trustees of a school or college are not active and helpful, the institution tends to stand still. Today a standing-still situation would be fatal. With the help of the good Lord, we will make it the School we all fondly hope it will be.”

All did not go smoothly in the change from the old to the young, however. Letters and Board minutes indicate that although the new, younger trustees were loyal to the School, attendance at Board meetings was often not enough for a quorum. A quorum was not present at the May 17, 1951, meeting which necessitated a special June meeting. In a letter to Francis Carmody dated May 25, 1951, Walter Sheehan expressed his concern that “so few are able to attend, even though they plan to do so. It makes the burden doubly difficult for you… To do the job we have in mind means singleness of purpose on the part of the trustees, and the attendance record would indicate that that is not possible for some of the men.”

In February of 1952, when the Board met to approve the trust establishing the Endowment Fund, only six trustees were present, not the seven required for a quorum.

As Francis Carmody wrote to one of the absent trustees, “This is the second time out of the last three meetings that this situation has arisen, and needless to say, it is a crippling situation.” To avert having to call another meeting and risk not meeting the quorum again, Carmody proposed that the trustee submit his resignation effective the day before the last meeting, reducing the total number of members to eleven rather than twelve and requiring a quorum of six. Two years later, because a May 20, 1954, meeting did not have a quorum, the executive committee took action on some issues.

Sheehan began his time as Head with enthusiasm and energy and set about increasing enrollment, attending to some deferred plant maintenance, and making some program changes. Stymied by the School’s financial situation, he wrote a long letter to Francis Carmody on May 5, 1951, in which he detailed some of the plant needs, including fixing the cracks in the North House stucco, fixing the heating in Middle House, purchasing new lockers for the gym and new chairs in the School House. Carmody responded on May 10 that “It is my thought that we should discuss the long-range program for the School at the next meeting.”

It soon became apparent to the Board that they should embark upon a drive to raise funds to begin an endowment and to raise money for expenses. This was not the first time in Canterbury’s history for a push for funds. In December of 1943, McDonnell had written to Hume that he hoped within the “next five years to formulate plans for raising a Canterbury Endowment Fund.” He commented that he looked forward to an endowment of $1,000,000.

Unfortunately, it would be decades before that particular goal would be fulfilled. Nearly ten years after 3

May Hume, widow of Nelson Hume, served as a trustee from 1948-late ’70s. Her son Stephen ’43, right, was on the Board from 1981-1991 and 1993-1995. The photo shows them at the groundbreaking ceremony for Havemeyer Hall.

McDonnell hoped to establish an endowment fund, Carmody stressed the need for such a fund, and a committee consisting of James Farrell Jr., Walter Sheehan, and Francis Carmody was appointed to study and report on suggested methods for raising an endowment and meeting the physical needs of the School. Carmody enlisted the verbal skills of Carlton Hayes to write a foreword for a brochure to be used in connection with Canterbury’s Endowment Fund Drive. In his request, Carmody said to Hayes that the School “should attempt to raise an endowment of $1,000,000 plus $500,000 for physical needs.” After reading Call to Catholic Action by Hayes, Carmody wrote to him, “In a few pages you have crystallized and made graphic all of the Canterbury aims.”

In February 1952, Francis Carmody sent Walter Sheehan a copy of the plan for the proposed Canterbury Endowment Fund. The letter included the comment, “In view of the amateur status of our committee, I am afraid a substantial portion of the burden of the drive 4

will fall upon you.” Finally, in the fall of 1952 the drive to raise money for a permanent endowment fund was launched with letters to parents and alumni and an alumni dinner in New York. At the February 1953 Board meeting, $108,000 had been received with an additional $20,000 in pledges. By fall 1954, the endowment was $166,000 and in 1956 it was $226,141.99; the minutes of the March 1956 meeting said, “The Chairman stated that it was clear that the school must raise a sum of at least $1,000,000 for its Endowment Fund over the next five years in order to provide sufficient additional income to take care of the increases in faculty salaries… if the school is to be able to hold and attract the best faculty.”

The conflict between raising money for facilities, maintenance, and faculty benefits vs. raising money for endowment has been a continuous one throughout Canterbury’s history.

In Walter Sheehan’s letters during this time, he expressed what he felt was another challenge in raising money and building an endowment. In January of 1963,

Sheehan wrote to his mentor and former headmaster Frank Boyden, “It is not easy to find Catholic people of substance who are not heavily committed to the Church, the hierarchy, and various Church charities.” The following year, in a letter to the consulting firm Martz and Lundy, Sheehan said, “Competition for the Catholic dollar philanthropically is really tough.”

An issue directly tied to that of fund raising, was a frequently voiced concern by trustees and others that the School was not doing enough to engage alumni and keep them involved in the School. Hubert McDonnell expressed this concern when he first became a Board member in the late ’30s. In 1941, Henry Havemeyer, Jr. wrote to Hume about “reviving the stagnant Alumni Association.”

In March of 1952, Kevin Wait ’47 wrote to Mr. Sheehan from Lowry Air Force Base and said, “I sorely miss the fact that all of my fellow classmates are not within easy reach as they were at Canterbury.

Therefore, I wish that we who have gone to Canterbury could keep contact through some sort of alumni news. Even if it were only published once a year, and contained the current news, I feel it would be of much enjoyment to them and benefit to the school.”

Sheehan’s response was, “I don’t think it would be good to take up the question of an alumni magazine and the cost involved at the present time, but that it would be better to wait until such time as the endowment drive is over.”

In November 1954 Sheehan appointed Rod Clarke Alumni Secretary in lieu of creating an alumni office. Sheehan commented that the School was “not ready for an alumni office.”

The School organized alumni dinners throughout the years, and after he had organized one such dinner in 1955, Tom Haire wrote to Fortune Peter Ryan to say “that an alumni association composed of interested alumni is very vital to the future of the School.”

Four years later, in October of

1959, Haire harbored the same concern. Now chairman of the 50th Anniversary Celebration Committee, he advocated developing alumni relationships in a letter to Francis Carmody. Haire wrote, “One of my recommendations is going to be that the School take a census of alumni and develop as much information about each of the members of the alumni body as it is possible to develop. This is important from the point of view of communicating with the alumni and it is also important if we are to enlist the aid of the alumni in doing things for Canterbury. I am convinced that one of the reasons why the alumni of Canterbury don’t do more for Canterbury is simply because Canterbury has not asked them to.”

In 1961, there was another recommendation to better organize the alumni of the School, this time from the Board. In response, in a May 6, 1965, letter to Dan Altobello ’59, Sheehan said, “What I may have to do is to appoint somebody on the faculty to look after the alumni side of things, while Peter (Cashman) ’55 concerns himself with the Drive and the 50th Anniversary Celebration we plan to have here.”

Canterbury certainly needed more dollars beyond what was coming in from tuition if the School were to expand its facilities to accommodate a larger enrollment.

During the 1946-47 school year, Nelson Hume had discussed with the Board the need for an infirmary, to enlarge the gym and the chapel, and provide more space for administrative offices. These continued to be pressing needs.

Even meeting the goal of attracting and keeping quality faculty was dependent on providing housing for faculty.

In October of 1950, Francis Carmody expressed an interest in providing homes for faculty. He stated in a letter to his brother Guerin on October 30, 1950, “Naturally, the School must provide the best education available in order to keep up its enrollment.

To do this, the School must have

the best faculty available. It is our feeling that by providing homes for the faculty on the campus, we will be in a better position to maintain and even improve the present caliber of the faculty.” The purpose of the letter was to ask Guerin to correspond with Connecticut General Insurance to negotiate a loan for building homes. However, because of scarcity of materials and the financial situation of the School, building was delayed until 1953.

Faculty member Frank Fisher had independently built a house in December of 1950 on the “windmill lot” which he bought from the School; this lot was on the southern edge of School property, and the house is now the home of retired faculty member Jules Viau and his wife Helene. The Board was finally able to finance building the “Reilly house,” later occupied by the Jim Shea and then the Paul Cauchon families, in 1953 on land north of the chapel. Phil Brodie also conceived of a plan to build his own house. On April 28, 1953, the issue of the Brodie house came up with Sheehan writing, “…he could build perhaps near the Fishers somewhere, which would be on the outskirts of the property.”

In May 1956, the Board committed to construct two faculty houses near the Reilly house and have them ready for occupancy in September of 1957. Each house would provide for five students so that in four or five years the additional revenues would amortize the loans. In January of 1956, the School worked out an agreement with faculty member Roger DesRoches so he could make a down payment on a house on New Milford’s South Main Street.

Providing for pensions was another faculty issue in the 1950s.

In Sheehan’s first Board meeting in 1948, Carlton Hayes had raised the issue of a pension for faculty.

As the pension plan developed over the next years, there was concern over how to provide for those men who were on the cusp of retirement. In 1953, Sheehan wrote to Francis Carmody that senior faculty members Phil Brodie,

Ed Mack, and Ed Lindman were all due to retire within two to four years. He said they should be in a “separate category,” and a separate arrangement was made for them.

The retirement plan for the faculty at large went into effect January 1, 1955. Six months later, a life insurance and accidental death plan was put in place. When Joe Maloney died in September of 1955, the group insurance plan resulted in an insurance payment to his widow Ann. The School’s need for expanded facilities determined that the goal of an endowment of $1,000,000 was not to be. Funds raised went to facilities which in turn produced a larger enrollment. In the February 1953 Board meeting, Sheehan made a case for the “urgent need for the enlargement of the School Building on the School campus to provide for five additional classrooms and two modern laboratories.” In May 1954, Sheehan wrote to Carmody that the athletic facilities “enable us to take care adequately of only eighty plus boys… Consequently, sixty to sixty-five boys are not on any team, and we keep them busy by playing softball in the afternoon.” He proposed that the apple orchard north of the gymnasium be cleared and the field leveled and seeded to expand the facilities including a new track. In 1955, the Board authorized moving the downtown Bleachery rink to a site north of the gymnasium. Before the end of the first quarter century, the Board had also approved a new dormitory (Havemeyer), an extension to the chapel, an enlarged dining room, a new gymnasium, and a Headmaster’s House. Each addition to the campus dictated that the Board and Sheehan work together to raise funds for these improvements.

Sheehan did much of the traveling and asking to raise funds for the School, but Board members were crucial in leadership and financial support during these years.

The leadership of Francis Carmody during most of this quarter century was vital. He followed his father Terence as 5

Headmaster Walter Sheehan, center, with members of the Board of Trustees.

L-r: Fortune Peter Ryan, Frank Cavanagh, Donal McDonnell ’39 (President), and Francis T. Carmody (Secretary).

a trustee and served first as secretary of the Board and then became president of the Board in 1950, succeeding Henry Havemeyer. When Donal McDonnell became president in 1960, Francis again served as secretary of the Board until his death in 1965. The correspondence between him and Hume and between him and Sheehan demonstrate that he was diplomatic, prudent, and always attentive to the needs of the School. In October of 1962, Sheehan wrote to Carmody, “More than anyone else in the Canterbury family, you have been responsible for what we have done.” This was written after Carmody gave a gift to clear the dining hall expansion debt. However, Carmody’s leadership was probably more important than what his pocketbook could do. When he died suddenly in February of 1965, Sheehan wrote, “I see nobody on the horizon who can possibly fill his place and do the job for us that was done… Frannie was a great loss to me personally, for no Headmaster could ever have had a better blocking back on his Board.” Francis’s brother Guerin served as counsel to the Board and his brother during this time; he himself became a trustee in 1966, and Guerin’s son Chris succeeded his father in 1974.

Fortune Peter Ryan, like Francis Carmody, was the son of a founding trustee, Allan Ryan. “Pete” Ryan was a significant leader and donor during these years. He served as vice president of the Board, served on the Building Committee, and became a member of Executive Committee in 1958 along with Sheehan and Carmody. He served as National Drive Chairman for the 50th Anniversary Drive. Characteristic of his interest and involvement is a long letter he wrote to Sheehan as Havemeyer dorm was being planned in which he expressed concern over the placement of the common room in the basement and the small size of the bathrooms.

Cantuarians of today would agree with him, especially on the placement of the common room. He was also one of the most, if not the most, generous trustee. He made significant contributions to nearly every building project: the infirmary, the Schoolhouse wing, the gymnasium, and the hockey rink in addition to giving miscellaneous capital gifts.

Carmody expressed his appreciation to Ryan in a December 14, 1953, 6

letter: “…in a short period of years you have already become one of the most generous contributors to Canterbury in the School’s entire history, taking your place with such stalwarts as the Messrs Brady, Mackay and Farrell and your father.”

John S. Burke became a trustee in 1939 and was active until 1956 when he was elected Trustee Emeritus. He, too, served as a vice president of the Board and was involved in building committees.

As president of B. Altman Co., he could, and did, contribute furnishings to the School. For example, on March 29, 1949, Sheehan wrote to Burke to thank him for the rugs for South House common room, “You will be glad to know that the boys greeted the van yesterday with loud cheers, because they had found the bare floor rather hard on their tender bottoms.” In January of 1958, Sheehan again wrote to Burke asking for an American Oriental rug for North House “as Middle and South have.” Burke’s poignant letter of resignation is quoted elsewhere in this article. John’s son, John S. Burke, Jr. ’41, succeeded him as trustee in 1957 and served until 1985.

Gerard ’31 and Gregory ’30 Smith were sons of John Thomas Smith, whose generosity funded the building of the Chapel of Our Lady. Gerard Smith became a trustee in 1948, and when he relocated to Washington D.C. his brother Gregory succeeded him as trustee in 1960. Both brothers

Sheehan did much of the traveling and asking to raise funds for the School, but Board members were crucial in leadership and financial support during these years.

“…in a short period of years you have already become one of the most generous contributors to Canterbury in the School’s entire history, taking your place with such stalwarts as the Messrs Brady, Mackay and Farrell and your father…”

–Francis T. Carmody to Fortune Peter Ryan Henry O. Havemeyer, honorary chairman of the Board of Trustees and Canterbury’s founder; Francis T. Carmody, trustee; May Hume, trustee and widow of Nelson Hume; and Walter Sheehan, headmaster, at the dedication of Havemeyer Hall in May of 1964.

were generous supporters of the School. In December 23, 1958, Carmody wrote to Gregory Smith: “Canterbury just would not be where it is today without you and Gerry and your whole family, and you should take great pride in the progress and success of the school.”

It would be a mistake to omit Henry Havemeyer as a significant trustee during this time. Although he became honorary rather than acting president in 1950, he continued to be a force to be reckoned with, occasionally sending letters with piquant observations or comments to Sheehan and Carmody. In August of 1962, after being offered the position of honorary co-chair of the capital fund campaign with Archbishop Henry J. O’Brien, D.D. of Hartford, Havemeyer responded that he would like to be sole honorary chairman of the committee because the School was founded “to be run by laymen and to be distinct from a religious school.” Upon hearing this, Sheehan remarked to Carmody that Havemeyer was being his “inimitable self.” Havemeyer’s request was granted.

He could also be complimentary as in his comments to Sheehan after seeing photos of the new infirmary.

“The chintz curtains in the rooms certainly will give the home touch for the sick boys,” he wrote.

Whatever curmudgeonly thoughts Havemeyer may have had from time to time, it seems that giving his name to Havemeyer Hall in May of 1964 erased them.

Sheehan wrote to Carmody after the dedication of Havemeyer House: “…he told me on leaving how pleased he was and how much he appreciated the fact that we all made a stir about him. Evidently he is much warmer in his later years.”

Other graduates gave excellent service to the School as well during these years. Marvin Laidlaw ’25 was secretary of the Board for a time. Wisner Miller ’30, Donal McDonnell, and James A. Farrell, Jr. served on Facilities and other committees. Donal McDonnell was President of the Board until 1974 and will be covered more thoroughly in the third Centennial PALLIUM issue. As mentioned in the previous article on trustees, the centennial website has a list of all trustees and short bios of those who served 20 years or more.

In April of 1956, the New England Re-Evaluation Committee visited Canterbury. The committee consisted of representatives from the Taft School, Westminster School, and Williston Academy.

The committee’s resulting report included both commendations and recommendations. Commendations included the friendliness of the boys, wives, masters, and headmaster; the appearance of the school; the teachers and high level of instruction; the honor system and student council; and the plans for alumni activities although they recognized the current lack of alumni activities.

Suggestions included improving faculty housing; improving the library facility and encouraging more use of the library; constructing an auditorium, an adequate basketball court, and at least four more tennis courts; more adequate music activities and facilities; more frequent publication of the School newspaper; and to re-appraise faculty salaries. These recommendations bolstered the push for the Hume Building, new tennis courts, and the Alumni Memorial Gymnasium which came to fruition in the next decade.

Canterbury’s Board of Trustees would confront these and other challenges in the next 25 years.

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By Marc Vanasse ’73

Headmasters Hume & Sheehan 1940-1965 Canterbury’s second quarter century began with Hume in charge, but he had only eight more years to cement his legacy. After Hume’s death in 1948, Walter Sheehan took over Canterbury’s reins and worked tirelessly to leave his imprint on the school he would lead for 25 years.

Nelson Hume and his faculty in 1947-48. He is flanked by Phil Brodie, left, and Joe Maloney, right. Back, l-r: Frank Fisher, John Weadock.

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he Tabard’s lead editorial in the October 2, 1940, issue stated, in part, “After twenty-five years of successful service in the cause of Catholic education, Canterbury is about to begin a second quarter of a century and it is this fact that lends the added significance to this particular school year.”

In 1940, life at Canterbury was arguably Utopian, a time and place set apart from the rest of the world, idyllic, carefree. To capitalize on Canterbury’s successful first quarter of a century, Nelson Hume orchestrated a modest on-campus celebration to fit the occasion. He telegraphed Henry O. Havemeyer on September 27, 1940, inviting him to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the opening.

“While I am not planning to mark our anniversary in any special way until early December,” Hume wrote, “I do think it would be most appropriate for you and me to spend a few hours together here at school on that day as we did 25 years ago.”

Keeping with the School’s Catholic raison d’être, Hume saw to it that Canterbury opened the second quarter century with the Mass of the Holy Ghost, celebrated on Thursday, September 26, 1940,

by Fr. Walter F. Kenny, pastor of St. Francis Xavier parish. He had already served one year as the School’s chaplain following the death of the Canterbury’s first chaplain, Fr. Joseph King. For the faculty and 93 boys enrolled in 1940-1941, Hume directed the kitchen staff to prepare an elaborate turkey dinner to commemorate the same meal served on the opening day in 1915.

Although Hume celebrated the occasion on campus with his students and faculty, he planned a grander celebration for the alumni of the School at the Yale Club in New York. It would be the only formal celebration marking the School’s 25th Anniversary. That dinner, held in December, included 92 graduates, headed by John Hughes ’21, the president of the Alumni Association. On the dais,

Terence Carmody, James Farrell, John Burke, and Hubert McDonnell represented the trustees. Philip Burnham ’23, editor of the Catholic weekly Commonweal, also joined in the festivities. Hume, of course, attended, but Havemeyer, the self-described “founder” of Canterbury, interestingly enough, did not. In keeping with Canterbury’s Catholic tradition, the main address was a speech by Mr. R. Dana Skinner, reviewer for Commonweal and publisher of America.

The greatest coup Hume could have received to mark his work and the anniversary was national coverage in Time magazine (December 30, 1940) in an article titled “A Canterbury Tale.” Hume’s pride was hurt by the reporter’s description of his physique. “The Doc is fat, has great bushy red eyebrows,” he wrote. However, Hume knew the great value the publicity could have on the School. In a letter to Richard DesJardins, his father-inlaw, Hume states that the story “was a pretty carefully handled subject, and it certainly has given the school a great deal of attention.” In the same letter, he defended his physique by writing, “My height is 5' 8" and I weigh 170 pounds, but I am damned if they didn’t make me look fat in the picture they took.”

The article’s opening paragraph was most complimentary. “Most tony U.S. prep schools–such as Phillips Andover and Exeter, St. Paul’s, Groton, Hotchkiss, Lawrenceville, Kent–are Protestant, in spirit if not by direct church affiliation. Twenty-five years ago a Jesuit-educated young man named Nelson Hume decided that this was unfair to Roman Catholic boys. In the hills of western Connecticut, not far from Hotchkiss and Kent, he started Canterbury School, where well-to-do Catholic boys, without neglecting their religious training, might prepare for Yale, Princeton, Harvard and Williams with the same swank as their Protestant contemporaries. Last week this Roman Catholic Groton celebrated the success of Nelson Hume’s idea.”

As the second quarter century began, Hume showed no signs of slowing down. He neither gave up any of his authority to others nor shied away from dealing with the most mundane of school matters. For example, Hume held his ground after a parent from an important family complained that his son had been “discriminated against” by not having been granted a full diploma on graduation day. Hume explained to the boy’s father that the lad “had not fulfilled the School’s requirements for a diploma and thus had only qualified for a certificate of attendance.

The hitch was that the boy, apparently a mediocre student, had not yet been accepted into a college or university. Once an institution of higher education accepted the boy, Hume sent along the lad’s diploma.

As much as Canterbury had ended the first quarter century on a high note, the boys, faculty, and staff would soon feel the effects of the looming world crisis. As Hume’s responses to the burning of the Bungalow (1925) and Main House (1936) had been swift and decisive, his leadership would now be tested in a greater way as the impending war cast its shadow over Canterbury life when the School opened in 1941. He supervised the School’s response to meeting restrictions mandated by the U.S. Government, the reduced number of faculty due to their enlisting or being drafted to the U.S. Armed Forces and the Royal Air Force, and perhaps, most importantly, bolstering the School’s morale when young Cantuarians lost their lives fighting for their country.

Hume was a leader among the independent schools in mapping programs for Moral Preparation for the call to arms and for increasing emphasis in the war years on physical education. The latter part of the program was directed by Mr. Brodie, who had been a regimental athletic director in World War I. Mr. Mack and Mr. Koenig had charge of the lectures on Moral Preparation.

In January of 121942, Hume attended what would be a long series of meetings among New England headmasters to “…discuss means by which the independent boys’ schools could best meet the demands of the

Hume was a leader among the independent schools in mapping programs for Moral Preparation for the call to arms and for increasing emphasis in the war years on physical education. present emergency.” Subsequently, in a Tabard article dated January 14, 1942, a young reporter writes, “A school meeting was called by Doctor Hume in the schoolhouse on last Thursday evening to discuss the problems created by the impact of war upon the private schools.

The main context of Doctor Hume’s talk was a program of proposed activities for the boys at school by which they can participate in the national defense effort. A plan has been mapped out for increased moral, intellectual, and physical preparation for the Canterbury student, preparation that is designed to help the student if he must enter the armed forces of the nation.”

Hume’s program included 20 minutes of calisthenics drill every day and the addition of a compulsory course in first aid and physical hygiene. The academic program was expanded to include mandatory courses in World Geography and Duties of Citizenship as well as courses in present day problems, training in the assembly and repair of combustion engines, riflery, radio maintenance, map making and reading, military mathematics, elementary navigation, signals and signaling, the use of Morse code, and an expansion of the Camera Club to study war photographs.

Hume adjusted other aspects of school life to respond to the conditions of the war. The Tabard changed its publication routine to reduce the number of trips to Danbury, where the paper was

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printed. Hume instructed boys to save waste paper, and he decided to move up graduation day in 1942 by one week in order to give Sixth Formers extra time before they entered an accelerated college program in late June or early July.

War rationing included a shortage of sugar and other food commodities. Hume said to his students that rationing would be like, “a Lenten season that will last for the duration of the war. We will have to live a plain life with high thinking, rather than a high life with plain thinking.”

He worked in tandem with New Milford’s town fathers to draw up plans concerning practicing blackout drills, asked all boys to help in the production of the 500,000 model airplanes needed by the Corps in the training of combat pilots, coordinated the issuing of ration books, asked boys to volunteer to join a work squad to take up the work usually done by hired men, and to pick apples at the orchard. By the end of 1942, the School’s wartime routine had set in. By then, as noted in the article on the faculty, Hume was also faced with competing with Uncle Sam for teachers.

In an April 8, 1942, letter to Henry Havemeyer, Hume writes more about wartime demands. “I shall try to see you this spring, although I shall have to stick very close to the school from now until the end of the year. I shall have to pinch-hit and teach a lot of classes from this until the end to make up for the loss of a master who will not be able to return after the holiday. Another may have to leave on the 22nd of April. A good many of our Filipinos, who served as waiters and houseboys, are being taken away for the merchant marine. Adjustment of all these things requires close attention, and the Captain of the ship has got to be on the bridge.”

In 1943, Hume arranged for the creation of a service flag, gift of the Class of 1943, to be hung in the Chapel of Our Lady. Next to it, he intended to place a list of the boys who were serving in the armed 10

Not all of Hume’s letters to his graduates were severe. “The Doc” could just as easily offer words of fatherly pride regarding a graduate’s career, as he often did with Sargent Shriver ’34, who regularly sought out Hume’s advice and kept him apprised of his military and career life. services and of those who had lost their lives in the war. He also called for boys to volunteer to plant and then harvest potatoes. To replace work done by “house workers,” Hume required each student to clean his own room daily.

During the war years, Hume received from his graduates and their parents information about Canterbury boys who were in the armed services. Most poignant were those about alumni who had been killed or were missing in action.

The Tabards printed whatever information Hume received, and he made sure that a gold star for each boy killed was added to the Flag of Honor.

Hume and Edgar C. Scanlon, Esq., exchanged a number of letters regarding Ed Scanlon, Jr. ’42 who was reported missing in action in 1944. Upon hearing from Mr. Scanlon in July 1945 that young Ed had lost his life, Hume wrote to him, “My heart goes out to you in deepest sympathy as I read your letter of July 27, and yet what pride must have filled your breast when you read the letter addressed to you by Lieutenant General Eaker.

That is a testimonial of a life well spent… Nobody could have had a more devoted son or a son whose life was so exemplary and must have been so entirely satisfactory to

his father than Ed was. That he had moral courage, I know very well.”

Scanlon responded to Hume’s letter on August 9, 1945. “I just really do not know how to ever thank you for your fine letter. It was a tremendous help to me and I have read it over and over.

Well do I recall our problems in having Eddie make the grade at Canterbury, but under your everwatchful eye, he certainly came through. As he often told me himself, he did not know what life was all about until he went to Canterbury. I have in mind some day asking your permission to make a presentation to the Chapel in memory of Eddie. And in this I will be guided entirely by your wishes.”

Scanlon and Hume soon began discussing a monstrance and a ciborium for the chapel. The two pieces Scanlon donated are discussed in the article on The Chapel of Our Lady.

To many Canterbury graduates, Hume was more than simply their former headmaster. More than a few turned to him, via letters, for his advice on matters ranging from work-related issues to college matters to wartime updates. In some instances, after receiving a less than stellar academic report from a college’s Dean of Freshman on a Canterbury boy’s fall term marks, Hume wrote the graduate a lengthy no-nonsense letter encouraging the boy to buckle down academically.

In a letter dated December 8, 1947, Hume wrote to a freshman at Trinity College (CT) to urge him to improve his grades. “What, in the name of God, have you been doing? Do you think you can swim your way through college? Do you realize that when marks come in like this that you are letting down your family and your school, and erecting a barrier to the admission of other Canterbury boys to Trinity College? When you left here, you were getting pretty good marks, even at times achieving First Group.

What will the Trinity College people think of our system of marking when they compare the

marks you got here in your final year with what you get there for the Thanksgiving Grades? You had better wake up.”

Not all of Hume’s letters to his graduates were severe. “The Doc” could just as easily offer words of fatherly pride regarding a graduate’s career, as he often did with Sargent Shriver ’34, who regularly sought out Hume’s advice and kept him apprised of his military and career life. Of particular interest is a letter dated September 24, 1947, in which Shriver asks Hume to critique a speech Shriver had written for Joseph P. Kennedy, his boss and former Ambassador to Britain, to deliver at the Buffalo Eucharistic Congress. “Would you be kind enough to glance through the attached draft of a speech for my boss and tell me your opinion?” he asked.

Hume replied quickly in a letter dated September 29, 1947. “I was glad to hear from you and appreciate the opportunity to read the draft of the speech you wrote for Mr. Kennedy. I shall try to answer your questions on the basis of one reading of the speech.” Hume corresponded with not only Shriver but also maintained a strong friendship with Shriver’s parents through many letters and phone conversations. When Robert Shriver, Sarge’s dad, died, Hume attended his funeral.

The trove of Hume correspondence in Canterbury’s archives demonstrates that he had a knack for friendship. In New Milford, Hume befriended Blossom and Clement Nobel. Trustee Hubert McDonnell remained a close friend until Hume’s death. Hume’s letters show that he had warm relationships with artist F. Luis Mora and his wife and artist Nicola D’Ascenzo. According to son David ’45, Hume possessed the “ability to charm a swarm of angry bees when he set himself to it.” His open friendliness combined with an air of authority made him a great success with policeman, customs officials, and maîtres d’hotel, claims David. His social circle included warm and lasting professional friendships with Sill of Kent, VanSantvoord of Hotchkiss, Batchelder of Loomis, Barlett of South Kent, and St. John of Choate. He also called younger headmasters, such as John Verdery of Wooster, his friends.

To his students, Hume exuded an intimidating personality, and he clearly had strong views on the teaching methods his faculty used.

One might describe them as a blend of the rigorous and the traditional.

However, when it came to his children’s education, he deviated from the traditional and put some of the tenets of the Progressive Education movement into place for his children. According to his son David, “No one went to school at first, but we were taught reasonably coherent lessons by Mrs. Maloney, a former teacher whose husband was on the Canterbury faculty.” He adds, “For a few years some of us went to Edgewood, a progressive school in Greenwich, CT, but only on Wednesdays. Everybody read all the time and the period was also the heyday of the radio adventure serial. Eventually Michael and Stephen entered Canterbury in seventh and eighth grade respectively. This reduction in home population broke up the idyll, and Zonni and I were sent to the parochial school, St. Francis Xavier, in New Milford where the extraordinary unevenness of our education was a source of amusement and concern to the nuns.”

Two of Hume’s great desires, and ones that remained unfulfilled, were to build an infirmary and the final wing of the schoolhouse. He had first proposed adding an infirmary in the mid-1940s. He believed he could build both buildings if the trustees approved his plan to increase enrollment by 18-20 boys, but two obstacles, a lack of funds on hand and bids that kept escalating with time, prevented him from doing so.

By war’s end, both his wife May and his physician had warned Hume to slow down. The Doc ignored their pleas and was determined by his personal leadership to reestablish the School on a firm peace-time basis.

Throughout the spring of 1948, he pressed forward in all departments of the School in addition to handling administrative matters and giving his personal attention to each of the college admission officers, who were

now embarked on their new policy of school visitations.

A few days before the end of school in May of 1948, Hume left his English class and went to his apartment in North House, saying to Mrs. Hume, “A man who feels as sick as I do should be in bed.” He was, unknowingly, suffering from a heart attack, from which he would never recover. He sent word to Mr. Mack to take over the preparation of the Graduation Mass, but insisted that he was not ill; simply, that his doctor had said he must rest.

On graduation morning, the Sixth Form gathered gloomily in his living room at the foot of the stairs.

Dr. Hume sent down, through Mrs. Hume, what was to be his last message, wishing them all the success and happiness he was wont to express to and for them when he officiated at graduation exercises.

Nelson Hume died of complications from his heart attack on June 14, 1948, in Danbury Hospital, having contended earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. His cousin, Fr. John K. Sharp, said the funeral service in the Chapel of Our Lady, and all members of the 1948 Choral Club sang the Requiem Mass.

An editorial in The Tabard of October 6, 1948, states: “The first reaction that the death of Dr. Hume brought to all the Alumni and friends of Canterbury School was the feeling of incredible loss.

To all who met him, Dr. Hume was the embodiment of zeal, resourcefulness, and energy. It was difficult to conceive that all that tireless, nervous eagerness would cease to direct the fortress of Canterbury. Secondly, there was the sense of personal loss. To some he had been a strict, but sincere guide in their formative years, to others

By war’s end, both his wife May and his physician had warned Hume to slow down.

The Doc ignored their pleas and…

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he had been a sympathetic friend in their difficulties, but to all he had been a model of what an outstanding Catholic layman should be.”

Immediately following Hume’s death, the trustees took up the urgent and important task of selecting Hume’s successor. Although some Board members believed the School would close without Hume at the helm, Francis Carmody, a member of the selection committee, thought otherwise, and his belief won the day.

The trustees conducted their search guided by several factors. They wanted a young man who would ensure a reasonably long tenure, and, of course, they sought in their candidate someone who was a practicing Catholic. Additional factors included someone who had teaching and administrative experience in a prep school and was well versed in the college admission process.

Sheehan’s version of how he arrived at Canterbury explains how Hume became acquainted with Sheehan’s school experience. Claimed Sheehan, at the annual meeting of the Headmasters’ Association in Rye, NY, in February of 1948, Hume was talking to Mr. Wickenden, the headmaster of Tabor Academy, and asked him if he knew any Catholic men in secondary schools who might make good headmasters. Wickenden told Hume of his friend and former colleague, Walter Sheehan, who, at that time, was the first Dean of Freshmen and Director of Athletics at Williams College, and who had taught him at Deerfield Academy. Fortuitously, Frank Boyden, the well-known headmaster of Deerfield, came by and told Hume that Sheehan would make a fine headmaster. Hume filed away Sheehan’s name in his mental Roladex, and in early May invited the Sheehans to Canterbury for a visit and to have Walter talk to the Sixth Formers about the possible pitfalls they might encounter in college. Hume, impressed with Sheehan’s straightforward manner and his common sense, soon recommended that Sheehan be contacted when the matter of a successor arose.

After Hume’s death, the trustees contacted Sheehan’s pastor in Williamstown, MA, and were satisfied with what they learned about Sheehan’s religious background. To complete the vetting process, the trustees asked the Sheehans to meet with Professor and Mrs. Carlton J.H. Hayes at Afton, NY, Hayes being the only educator on the Board. Upon Hayes’s recommendation, the committee offered the headmastership to Sheehan, who accepted.

So, in the summer of 1948, 38-year-old Walter Sheehan took over the reins of Canterbury. He had concluded his high school education as a post-graduate from Deerfield in 1929 after transferring from Holyoke and Sacred Heart High Schools. He was also a graduate of Williams College, where he had been twice selected to the All-New England basketball team, founded the Newman Club and was its Junior Advisor. He was a member of Gargoyle, the senior honor society, a member of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, captain of the basketball team, and starting pitcher on the baseball team.

After graduating from Williams in 1933, Sheehan returned for 12 years to his alma mater, Deerfield, where he was an English teacher, founder and editor of The Deerfield Review, and assistant coach of the basketball and baseball teams. In June of 1946, Sheehan left Deerfield to return to his college alma mater. There, he served, as mentioned before, as Dean of Freshman, Director of Athletics, and resident counselor at his former fraternity. In addition, he served for two years on the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Eligibility Board.

In 1941, Sheehan married Lillian Fontaine of Belmont, MA. At the time of his appointment to be Canterbury’s headmaster, the couple had two boys, Peter, 6, and Kevin, 3. Their youngest, Monica, was born in 1955.

Shortly after his arrival at Canterbury, Williams College granted Sheehan the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. The inscription on his Williams award reads: “An athletic and a scholar, he quickly took 12

high rank among the teachers of Deerfield Academy and served his alma mater well as Director of Athletics and Dean of Freshmen. Few men are so well equipped to guide boys on the road to manhood, widening and strengthening the activities of a leading Catholic school.” In 1964, he was awarded the Degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of Portland (Oregon), when he delivered the commencement address to the graduates.

In a letter dated September 24, 1948, the start of Sheehan’s first year as Canterbury’s headmaster, Sheehan reported to Henry O. Havemeyer that Canterbury opened with the largest enrollment ever in the School’s history, 124 boarding pupils. He adds, “All the details attendant upon the opening of school and particularly getting a new regime started have delayed my correspondence longer than I would wish. Frankly, I am delighted at this number because it should prove to everybody that the School is well-established, and that it is more important than any one individual.”

After having surveyed all aspects of Canterbury in fine detail, Sheehan quickly applied the full weight of his headmastership on transforming the physical plant, disciplinary system, and academic, religious, and athletic programs

Walter and Lynn Sheehan circa 1963.

Walter Sheehan as basketball coach in the 1960s.

into his version of the ideal college preparatory school. During his tenure, faculty housing and salaries improved and a faculty pension plan, life insurance plans, and health benefits were instituted.

One of Sheehan’s first official acts was hiring Canterbury’s first resident chaplain, newly ordained Fr. Thomas J. Quinn, to serve the spiritual needs of the boys by saying daily Mass and teaching them religion twice per week. His additional duties included teaching Latin, serving as housemaster in North House, directing school plays, and helping coach fall teams. Chosen by Henry J. O’Brien, Archbishop of Hartford, and approved by the trustees, Fr. Quinn assumed his responsibilities in 1948.

He was to be a constructive force in the School and would carry on the spiritual ideals of the founders, which had been maintained so well

by Hume, for ten years.

A Tabard editorial contained in the December 10, 1951, issue stated that Sheehan had announced several weeks prior that the Board of Trustees was beginning a drive for an endowment fund to “place Canterbury on a level with the larger non-Catholic preparatory schools, to use the interest on a large endowment to provide higher faculty salaries and possible retirement pensions, to be able to grant scholarships to a greater number of deserving boys than ever before, to insure this institution against a deficit brought on by rising costs of maintenance.”

Throughout his tenure, Sheehan’s letters are sprinkled with comments on the difficulty of raising money

for buildings or endowment. In March of 1956, he wrote to his friend and mentor, Frank Boyden of Deerfield that he was still handling Admission and college placement and expressed “envy that other Heads don’t have to do the traveling that a poor Catholic Head does.”

The start of the 1952-1953 school year marked Sheehan’s first fouryear cycle of students. By then, students and faculty had certainly felt his imprint on the School. While Hume’s style of administration was so very personal, Sheehan chose to delegate administrative responsibilities. This afforded him time to leave campus to raise money, provide his headmaster’s wisdom and experience to various organizations to which he was elected, and play a little golf, his favorite pastime. For example, in 1952, the College Board (CEEB) elected him to represent secondary schools for a threeyear term. The following year, he served on a panel discussion at the 67th Annual Meeting of the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools.

In 1955, New Milford’s Board of Selectmen asked Sheehan to lead a 16-man body to study specific areas of town government. In November of 1956, he attended the 4th colloquium on College Admissions. In the same year, he attended a meeting in Hartford “to ease the problems common to the relationship between colleges and secondary schools,” and a conference in Boston sponsored by The Laymen Association of Schools and Colleges to discuss problems of a student’s curriculum and the topic of the college administration.

In addition, he belonged to the Headmasters’ Association.

Lou Buck ’66, a student during the Sheehan years says, “There was never a shadow of a doubt regarding who was firmly in control of Canterbury. He was given to the term ‘dunderheads’ to apply to those students who had made a misstep and ‘stovepipe’ when making reference to the tapered pants of the day, which he

admonished students not to wear.

Lou goes on to say, “At Friday evening school meetings held in South House common room, the students sat on the floor in front of the fireplace and usually engaged in noisy conversation with each other. When the time came for the meeting to begin, all Mr. Sheehan had to do to call the meeting to order as he stood in front of the fireplace was gently tap his bill fold/note pad once against his free hand and everyone came to attention quite quickly. I also remember that on Parents’ Day, Mr. Sheehan would walk the campus to watch the various games and say hi to alumni and parents. He typically would have Jim Breene, his Assistant Headmaster, walk closely next to and a step behind him to whisper the name of anyone Mr. Sheehan was about to encounter and whose name he may not have recalled.”

Sheehan’s history as a high school and college athlete informed not only his choice of metaphors in his speech and writing–“stay in and pitch” was a favorite closing to a letter–but he followed Canterbury teams closely and put in some stints at coaching. In September of 1959, the Head of Williston wrote to Sheehan, “I congratulate you as

After having surveyed all aspects of Canterbury in fine detail, Sheehan quickly applied the full weight of his headmastership on transforming the physical plant, disciplinary system, and academic, religious, and athletic programs into his version of the ideal college preparatory school.

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Walter Sheehan talks to student in his office circa 1962.

soccer coach. Where did you learn that sport along with all the rest?”

Sheehan’s competitive spirit and his sense of humor are on display in a October 1954 letter to Peter Cashman’s ’55 father about a football game, “We are very ecumenically minded here, but I am pleased to say that our feeling stopped short when we played the Kent School last Saturday and gave them a fine defeat, 25-0.”

Sheehan ably demonstrated his take-charge style in 1954, when polio struck the School and several boys were afflicted. He decided to close the School for a time and send all the boys home, potentially saving the School from more serious consequences. An October 26, 1954, letter to Mr. and Mrs. Herbert McLaughlin in Lake Forest stated: “We haven’t had an secondary case, thank God, and we have been praying that none comes up. One of the boys in New Haven is getting along very well, but the second boy is still on the critical list. They feel that he has turned the corner as to living, but there is a lot of residual paralysis. All we can do is to pray, and the School has been fine in this regard.” In a letter dated November 4, 1954, Justin T. McCarthy of Springfield, IL, writes to Sheehan, “From your letter and other sources, I learned how well you handled the scare at the school and I can’t help but congratulate you.”

Although Sheehan was unquestionably the person in charge of Canterbury, he took steps to give students leadership roles by reviving the Student Council in 1951 and introducing the proctor system to help supervise dorms and boys in outside houses.

On February 17, 1952, Sheehan appeared as a guest panelist on CBS’s television show Lamp Unto my Feet. After watching a performance of The Big Idea, Sheehan and two additional panelists discussed the moral and ethical implications of the playlet.

From his first year as headmaster, Sheehan was committed to improving the lot of the faculty. He immediately raised the salaries of the older faculty members and, after much planning by the Board, he announced in 1955 that the Board of Trustees had approved a faculty pension plan for those teachers who had served 25 years or more. The 25 years began in 1955, so the men who had already served for many years could not be 14

included. Instead, they received a lump-sum payment to provide small annuities. Later, the School added health benefits and life insurance for the faculty.

Sheehan acted quickly to complete Hume’s unfinished business of building an infirmary.

In the fall of 1950, the Canterbury opened with the largest enrollment in its history: 137. Recognizing the need to grow the physical plant, the trustees gave the goahead to build the infirmary in April of 1950. Six months later, Fr. Quinn blessed the building during Homecoming Day. The trustees held off approving building an addition to the schoolhouse until January 19, 1954.

Early in 1951, The Tabard reported that “through the many and varied efforts of Mr. Sheehan, Mr. Hebert, and the entire hockey squad, in cooperation with the Robertson Bleachery of New Milford, CT, Canterbury had attained one of its longest-awaited and most sorely needed goals–a new hockey rink.” On June 4, 1951, Sheehan canceled classes in order for the boys, with faculty supervision, to move the pipes for Canterbury’s first artificial rink to campus.

Upgrading of faculty housing began in 1950 with faculty member Frank Fisher building his own home on land contiguous to Canterbury’s 135 acres. Today, that house is owned and occupied by Jules Viau, his wife Helene, and son Joseph ’79. Sheehan wrote to a colleague at the time, “I personally am in favor of doing anything we can to keep good faculty.” To bolster his desire to keep “good faculty,” Sheehan worked with the Board to build three faculty homes by 1957 on the current Circle Drive. These houses contained space for students as well as faculty families, thus permitting Canterbury to increase enrollment and tuition income.

Groundbreaking for the south wing of the schoolhouse occurred during the first week of April in 1954, and the new facility opened on October 8. The addition to the

east of the south entrance, added modern physics and chemistry labs as well as more classrooms.

The Tabard’s October 8, 1954, issue contained photos of a plan to turn the apple orchard to the north of the gymnasium into playing fields. The plan called for 420,000-square-feet of surface to be transformed into eight tennis courts, a baseball field, a football field, and a quarter-mile track.

Again, the rationale for this plan was to modernize and improve school facilities to keep pace with other preparatory schools in our league. The fields were ready for use during the 1955-1956 school year.

In 1957, two additional tennis courts, located behind South House, were completed. Also in 1957, the Board and Sheehan decided to raise sufficient funds for the construction of a larger and more complete library than existed at the time. It would be located in the study hall (north wing) of the schoolhouse. The new library opened on November 18 and boasted space for 10,000 books.

As the new athletic fields affected the athletic program positively, so the addition of the schoolhouse wing and the library benefited the curriculum.

A Tabard editorial dated June 8, 1957, stated a more adequate

To bolster his desire to keep “good faculty,” Sheehan worked with the Board to build three faculty homes by 1957 on the current Circle Drive. These houses contained space for students as well as faculty families, thus permitting Canterbury to increase enrollment and tuition income.

Walter Sheehan serves as emcee of a fundraising dinner in North House Dining Room in the 1960s. At the dias, l-r: Frank Cavanagh, May Hume, unidentified, Francis T. Carmody, unidentified, Lynn Sheehan, Walter, unidentified, Donal McDonnell, unidentified, Fr. Regis Ryan, unidentified.

library was needed to serve those Sixth Formers who were taking honors courses. Under Sheehan’s leadership, the School added honors courses to the curriculum.

He stayed abreast of what was new in the educational world including “new” math. There were sporadic attempts to reintroduce Greek into the curriculum, with limited success.

The following year, the trustees and Sheehan accepted a plan to enlarge the Chapel of Our Lady, and two years later, a new headmaster’s residence was built on the top of the hill. In 1963, Phil Brodie, a retired longtime faculty member, and others broke ground on the extension of the Alumni Memorial Gymnasium. In 1964, the School held a dedication ceremony for the building of Havemeyer Hall. Fourth and Fifth Formers from the “outside houses’ occupied the dorm and the Martiska and Viau families moved into the bookended apartments.

Sheehan was proud of his Irish background, and rarely let an opportunity go by where he did not mention it in a letter or make trips to Ireland. In 1964, he traveled

to the Emerald Isle with Mr. Brodie for a couple of weeks. They played golf and visited with Sheehan’s son Peter, who was studying in Dublin. A year later, he returned to Dublin to find a chaplain, namely Fr. Clement Greenan, O.P. The citation for his Honorary Doctorate stated, in part, that “Irish literature has long been his special province.”

The citation also stated: “A constant reader and frequent lecturer, he has for many years been a speaker in demand by Church and other groups in New England.”

In an August 3, 1964, letter to Mrs. James Quinn of NJ, Sheehan states, “I’m delighted to learn of a kindred spirit so far as Ireland, and things Irish, are concerned…

I’ve been over to Ireland three times, the last time this past April.”

On September 29, 1964, Sheehan wrote to The Minister for Justice for Ireland in Dublin, Charles Haughey, to congratulate him on Ireland on Parade. “It succeeds in making people of Irish descent, or any other spectators, aware of the rich Irish legacy which has come down through the long years in tradition and song… Perhaps the destiny of Ireland, as mentioned by

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Headmaster Walter Sheehan conducts a school meeting in the South House common room in the early 1960s. At right are Bill D’Alton ’42 and Rod Clarke ’46.

President Kennedy in his speech to the Irish, will be fulfilled in our time.” Sheehan states in a May 11, 1965, letter to Charles Dice, the School’s fundraising consultant from Martz and Lundy, “We had a fine dedication of the gymnasium, and, as I told the audience, we are in the position, so far as the new buildings are concerned, of the Irishman who toasted his friends with the following words, “Thank God for the next drink; we have this.” In a November 19, 1949, letter to Mrs. Walter Smith from Williamtown, Sheehan writes, “I am afraid that our School isn’t as Irish as you might think, and what Irish there are have not been steeped in the old lore as much as I was when I was their age.”

From 1948-1965, Sheehan, corresponded with Heads of other schools; Board President Francis T. Carmody; Frank Boyden, his headmaster and boss at Deerfield Academy; graduates; many Williams connections; and Holyoke friends. Frank Boyden 16

and Sheehan had remained close friends since Sheehan left Deerfield.

Speaking at a dinner in honor of Boyden, Sheehan began his remarks by citing his relationship with Deerfield as a boy, a faculty member, an alumnus, and a parent when Peter went to Deerfield. In closing, he said, “As a boy, and since, I have always thought Mr. Boyden to be one of those rare individuals who are blessed at birth by the Lord with unique gifts of heart and mind and soul to prepare them for a lifetime of extraordinary work in a particular field. My own desire to go into teaching was prompted alone by his example, for I thought nothing could ever be better than to be able to do for boys one day what he had done for me and for so very many… As the line from Horace says, he has built, in all truth, ‘a monument more lasting than bronze.’”

On January 6, 1954, Sheehan wrote to a Mr. Beattie of Ohio, “The School has gone well, thank God, and our enrollment, which

was 118 when I came, is now up to 157, largely because we have got some new buildings and have been able to increase the size. This growth has made a difference, of course, in salaries and a lot of other things, and, because our enrollment has filled rapidly, we have not had many of the problems that a few other schools have had. All in all, we have been very fortunate, and it remains a stimulating and challenging job, more than ever today.”

During his first 16 years as headmaster, Sheehan had transformed the School’s physical plant by erecting four new structures and adding to two. In addition, he improved the lives of the faculty by increasing their salaries and adding insurance and pension plans. For the rest of his tenure, he would continue to add to the physical plant and guide Canterbury to a larger school and record enrollment, while keeping faithful to the Catholic mission of Canterbury’s original trustees.

CANTERBURY SCHOOL Celebrating 100 Years

Donating to the Archives

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he occasion of Canterbury’s Centennial has put a spotlight on our archives. The photo at right of Nelson Hume at a 1940s football game was donated by Richard Keogh ’49. Past publications such as The Quill, The Tabard, Cantuarians, and PALLIUMS have been rich sources of photographs and historical information. We have used this information and other photographs, correspondence, and artifacts in creating the Centennial website, exhibits, presentations, and the articles in this issue of the PALLIUM. We have benefitted greatly in the past from donations of scrapbooks, photos, athletic uniforms, and other memorabilia from alumni. For example, last fall Grace Sartor, daughter of Captain Thomas J. Sartor ’19 and sister of Thomas J. Sartor Jr. ’50, sent the photos of the Bungalow and Main House used in “The Founding” article in the previous issue.

Baseball uniforms worn by John Dowling ’30 and exhibited during the Athletics Hall of Fame dinner were donated by his wife Claire Dowling and his daughter Nancy Petty.

We are interested in adding to the material we have on Canterbury’s history. We would welcome receiving personal papers such as correspondence, diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, or videotapes that shed light on the life of students at Canterbury.

Nelson Hume supporting Richard Clarke ’48, unidentified, and J. Barry Stanford ’48.

Even if you did not keep artifacts from your days at Canterbury, you may have memories to share.

We would be pleased to receive written or recorded reminiscences.

These reminiscences could be just a short recollection or anecdote about a classmate, teacher, event, or a general reflection.

At the moment we do not have an archivist; Lou Mandler and Kathy Bolster are minding the space and its holdings in the meantime. If you have any material from your Canterbury years, or if you have questions about what might be appropriate for adding to our archives, please contact either Lou or Kathy.

We are interested in adding to the material we have on Canterbury’s history. We would welcome receiving personal papers such as correspondence, diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, or videotapes that shed light on the life of students at Canterbury.

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By Wright Danenbarger

The Faculty 1940-1965 In this article, Wright Danenbarger, Dean of Faculty, chronicles a few of the most “necessary” and memorable teachers of Canterbury’s second quarter century.

Who are these men and what made them so necessary and memorable?

I

n a letter dated January 3, 1941, Canterbury School mathematics teacher Francis Degnan wrote to Nelson Hume quoting the rules for draft deferral in the United States Selective Service manual.

Degnan had been hired by Hume to teach math at the start of that school year, and in that same fall the U.S. Congress passed the Burke-Wadsworth Act in order to institute the draft even though the country had not yet entered the War in Europe. Degnan was likely responding to Hume’s request that he instruct Hume about how to proceed under the new law and yet maintain some of his valuable faculty: “Dear Doctor Hume: Enclosed is the ‘Claim for Deferred Classification.’ and below is a quote from the Selective Service manual defining ‘necessary man,’ which, if accepted, will reclassify me in Group II at least temporarily:

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A registrant shall be classified as ‘necessary man’ in employment, etc., or in any service, only when all these conditions exist (Degnan’s underline): a. He is, or but for seasonal or temporary interruption could be, engaged in such activity. b. He cannot be replaced satisfactorily because of a shortage of persons with his qualifications or skill in such activity. c. His removal would cause a material loss of effectiveness in such activity.”

Degnan goes on to say that he thinks if Hume fills out the claim form that he could finish the school year before entering the draft.

Hume, in turn, did make the claim, and, in a letter that accompanied it, articulated more precisely what he saw to be the essential necessity of his faculty: “In June 1940 Francis J. Degnan entered into a contract with Canter-

Hume really did see his faculty as a group of necessary men well beyond the limited meaning of the Selective Service’s definition. Canterbury School faculty were doing the necessary work of getting Catholic boys accepted into America’s best colleges and onwards to a rightful and equal place in American society. bury School, Inc., to fill a position as teacher of mathematics in the school for the entire school year 1940-1941, which does not end until June 25, 1941. The work assigned to him is of a continuous nature, the preparation of boys to pass the examinations of the College Entrance Examination Board in Mathematics. Necessarily this teaching would suffer severely as a result of a change of teachers at this time of the year, and his withdrawal from the school at any time before the end of the school year would certainly be detrimental to a large group of American boys. For this reason, I think it only fair to claim for his deferred classification, at least until he can complete the term of the contract which he made with the School in June 1940. Headmaster of the Canterbury School, Nelson Hume.”

Hume really did see his faculty as a group of necessary men well

beyond the limited meaning of the Selective Service’s definition.

Canterbury School faculty were doing the necessary work of getting Catholic boys accepted into America’s best colleges and onwards to a rightful and equal place in American society.

Who were these necessary men?

Certainly, as the School grew and challenges such as the Second World War put pressure on the School to shuffle and reshuffle its teaching corps, quite a few names show up in the histories.

My intent here is to briefly chronicle a few of the most necessary and memorable teachers of the School’s second quarter.

Before I proceed, however, it seems proper to give a nod to those early necessary men who retired during this period. Phil Brodie (35 years) retired in 1957, and alumni thought so highly of him that they united to have his portrait painted. It hangs in the Brodie Room, the room named for him in the Alumni Gymnasium.

He remained in his house on campus until his death in the early 1970s. Ed Lindman (29 years) said goodbye in 1958, retiring to Florida.

Ed Mack (29 years) retired in 1957, and he stayed on for many years in his house on Marwick Manor. Joe Maloney died while still an active faculty member in 1955 (30 years).

If we are to identify who might fit this selective definition of faculty service for this period, we would have to start with Claremont “Mike” Koenig, whose tenure fits exactly into this stretch. Hume hired Koenig in 1940 to head the Science Department. As his contemporary, Ed Mack tells us in his Canterbury School history, The Way it Was at Canterbury, 19151965, Koenig “furnished more color and more individualism than any other person in the history of the institution.” He was a graduate of Yale, which must have appealed to Hume and Havemeyer, of course, and he excelled in getting his students ready for the College Boards that would get them into his alma mater.

Mack describes Koenig as a teacher whose “personality was such that his very presence in a classroom was a guarantee of subterranean excitement.” The warm regard students had for Koenig is demonstrated by the fact that he had the yearbook dedicated to him twice in six years, in 1948 and 1954, and yet again in 1961. He was the “Senior Master” of the School for several years before his retirement.

He was, by all accounts, a positive man, and a very loyal Saints athletics fan. Mack claims he was the original Saints Super Fan: “Canterbury never had a more loyal rooter for its athletic teams, and he was indiscriminate in support of them, whether it was football, baseball, hockey, basketball, swimming, soccer, or chess. He was seldom known to agree with any decision or ruling that went against Canterbury.” Koenig was known around campus as “Black Mike,” because he was unusual among the faculty for being a non-Catholic. He also stood out for his hijinks and his driving record, which reached its denouement when he was ticketed for speeding the wrong way up Main Street trying to get up a head of steam to surmount the Canterbury hill during a snowstorm. He was posthumously awarded the Canterbury Medal in 2005.

Although hired before 1940, James Herlihy perhaps fits best in an account of the second quarter, and he certainly merits note. He had served as a Second Lieutenant in World War I, and he was fluent in French after five years studying in Paris. He also revived Canterbury’s Spanish program. Herlihy trained the boys on horseback trail riding and became known as “Gentleman Jim” for his European taste in clothes, epicurean delights, and skill in music.

As the opening of this piece suggests, Nelson Hume had to scramble during the war years to hire strong faculty to meet the School’s needs.

In this excerpt from a letter to Henry Havemeyer, dated August 29, 1942, he terms his struggles with faculty hiring and retention as a type of “competition” with the government: “We will probably have to get along

Claremont ”Mike” Koenig with a student. Dr. Hume hired him in 1940.

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The tenure of math and science teacher Frank Fisher vividly demonstrates Hume’s ongoing struggle with the wartime retention of faculty.

Hired in 1941, Fisher, in addition to his teaching duties, participated in Hume’s Moral Preparation for the call to arms. Fisher formed a Gun Club that practiced at a fully equipped range behind North House, and he taught Morse Code, mechanical drawing, first aid, and model airplane building. with a reduced number on the faculty. I hope to be able to manage things with a smaller faculty so as to keep the school from losing any of its outstanding efficiency, which has done so much to keep the school strong in the minds of the parents during the last several years. The reason for the reduced faculty, of course, is the enlisting or drafting of schoolmasters.

I need two more men than I have at present, and I am likely to lose one of those that I am counting on—the football coach, who, even though he is a married man with a child, is likely to be inducted into the Army within the next month. Of course, I am being very busy about finding other men to fill these vacancies, but the kind of men I want are the very kind of men Uncle Sam needs, and he is likely to win out in this competition.”

Here we can imagine the word necessary cutting the other way, against Hume. He is even losing married men. Things gotww easier after the War ended in 1945 for a short stretch, but the archives contain letters from Walter Sheehan to the Irish Ambassador in 1951 looking for Irish men that would act as exchange teachers as a result of pressures from the draft for the Korean War. Needless to say, these are circumstances that are hard for me to imagine as Canterbury School’s Dean of Faculty. It is one thing to be competing against our local prep schools for quality faculty; it is altogether another thing to be competing with Nazism, Imperial Japan, and the communists. These are necessities that put my hiring searches into perspective.

The tenure of math and science teacher Frank Fisher vividly demonstrates Hume’s ongoing struggle with the wartime retention of faculty. Hired in 1941, Fisher, in addition to his teaching duties, participated in Hume’s Moral Preparation for the call to arms. Fisher formed a Gun Club that practiced at a fully equipped range behind North House, and he taught Morse Code, mechanical drawing, first aid, and model airplane building. It was not long, however, before Fisher got the call to arms himself. The School archives have a February 30, 1942, letter from Hume to the Draft Board in Scarsdale, NY, that reads much like the letter asking for Degnan’s deferral. In it he refers to Fisher as an “essential man,” and goes on to argue forcefully what that terms means: “A man of his abilities and engaged in such work should, in the opinion of the Headmasters of schools, be allocated to the work he is doing now, for we have been made to understand by our conferences with the War Department and the Navy Department that an essential part of the war effort of the country must now be properly preparing boys of high school age. We feel that we are doing serious work, not only in carrying on academic instruction but in developing boys in special ways I have indicated. Some of the courses that are carried on by Mr. Fisher 20

Frank Fisher was one of Hume’s “essential men.” He began his Canterbury career in 1941.

should receive special consideration from the Draft Board, for it is not easy to replace a man and the replacing of him in the middle of the year would have the effect of destroying the value of the courses already begun and bringing about an unsettled condition in schools, which is the very condition representatives of the Army and of the Navy have urged us to prevent.”

Canterbury risked an “unsettled condition” when Fisher decided that summer to join the Navy as a lieutenant. He wrote to Hume that he felt it was the right thing to do, and he continued a correspondence with Hume while he was on active duty. In a letter dated September 19 of that fall, Fisher describes to Hume how his command of a Navy vessel reminded him of his time at Canterbury School: “My own crew are a swell bunch of boys, big enough for me to wish I had them as a football squad. I trained them as gunmen for the last month at school in VA, and it was very much like coaching. The boys had to be placed in various positions on each gun, learn to handle that position, and be able to

cover each other in an emergency.

Now we are all ready and raring to meet up with a sub or several enemy planes.”

Hume was so delighted with the letter, he wrote back to Fisher to tell him that he read it aloud to the boys in the dining room to a loud round of applause. Moreover, it would appear that Fisher’s boys were ready for a sub attack, as an article in the World Telegram of March 23, 1943, titled “Schoolmaster Sailor survives U-Boat Blast” reported. The gist of the piece, apart from describing how Fisher got every single one of his men to safety, gets at how extraordinary the times were even for prep school teachers: “Only a year ago Frank Fisher, a bachelor of arts of Fordham University, was leading the unruffled life of a junior pedagogue at Canterbury School, New Milford, Conn. Three weeks ago, Lt. (jg) Frank Fisher of the U.S. Navy was in command of an armed guard on board the U.S. Merchantman Staghound.

In the pitch blackness of a South Atlantic midnight an Axis U-boat sent three torpedoes into the Staghound.

A few minutes later, the former schoolmaster was sliding from a wave-soaked deck onto a life raft.

A phenomenon of this war is the way mild-mannered civilians have become fighting men almost overnight.”

After his war service ended, Fisher returned to teach at Canterbury School until 1957. He received the yearbook dedication in

“The Bear was the best and, by far, the hardest teacher I ever had. He was one of the core teachers who made a huge impact on my life.

A true legend.”

–George Malhame ’74

1956. Canterbury’s faculty may be made up of many mild-mannered civilians, but the story of Frank Fisher serves to remind us that those faculty of its second 25 years taught during an extraordinary time. They became necessary to school and nation, training and serving young men in the class and on the battlefield and back again, wherever the call came from.

When World War II did end, hiring was easier for a time, and that is when Nelson Hume made what may have been one of his last official acts: the hiring of Jean Hebert, aka “The Bear.”

Jim Herlihy’s departure in 1946 necessitated the hiring of someone who could, eventually, take over as Language Department Chair, and Hebert was a graduate of Middlebury College’s renowned language program and fluent in both French and Spanish. Hired in 1948, a few months before Hume’s death, “The Bear” would go on to teach at Canterbury for an astounding 41 years until his retirement in 1989. Hebert had served in World War II in the Army Air Corps in Air Seas Rescue and taught in Bath, NY, before he came to Canterbury.

In an interview with Marc Vanasse ’73 for a PALLIUM issue during the last year of his teaching, Hebert spoke about how teaching was a family affair: “I saw my father go off to school to work every day for 37 years… I had an aunt who taught music and there were many other teachers in the family.

So I think I came by it naturally.”

The reminiscences of him by his students, colleagues, and family at the time of his death in 2014 depict a very dedicated teacher who felt it was entirely in his students’ best interest to be demanding of them.

His son Frank ’73 articulated his fathers’ passion in his eulogy at a memorial Mass in The Chapel of Our Lady on April 4, 2014, (as reprinted in the PALLIUM): “My father could be rigorous and exacting. His students learned quickly that he could see right through the excuses to laziness, carelessness or lack of preparation.

In one of last official acts before his death, Hume hired Jean Hebert in 1948. Hebert, aka ”The Bear” became a legendary figure in and out of the classroom. He retired in 1989.

He had no patience for second-rate work. This was not because he was a cantankerous old bear. It was because holding high standards and insisting on his students’ best efforts was the right thing to do.”

His students understood this concern for their well-being, repeatedly recalling the difference between his exterior and his inner 21

persona: “Mr. Hebert was one of my favorite teachers. Gruff on the outside, compassionate on the inside,” reflected Karin Beebe Irwin for the PALLIUM article commemorating him. In the same issue and same vein from George Malhame ’74: “The Bear was the best and, by far, the hardest teacher I ever had. He was one of the core teachers who made a huge impact on my life. A true legend.”

Colleague JP Mandler fondly recalls the same quality when he quotes Jean telling students, “Yes, my middle initial is “S” but that doesn’t stand for Santa Claus.”

Of course, the students clearly thought well of him during his career, too, awarding him the Cantuarian dedication three times, in 1957, 1962, and 1978. I found myself at a lunch table with Jean on a random day in my second or third year here in the early aughts.

He was very warm and personable and happy to talk about teaching. I told him I was an English teacher, and we began to talk about literature. I could tell he was very well read, and I assumed he was a former English teacher, so I asked him what books were taught at Canterbury during his tenure. He told me he would get me a list, and much to my delight, a week or so later, a piece of 6" x 8" New York Giants stationery (itself a collectible) appeared in my mailbox with the title Books Read by Canterbury Students in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. By all accounts, Jean Hebert was a Canterbury legend. Intensely dedicated to the School and to the profession, he gave almost all of his adult life to Canterbury.

When Walter Sheehan took over as headmaster in the summer of 1948, he took an approach with the faculty that was at once strict but also realistic. In an interview with Jean Hebert for her book, Canterbury School: The First Ninety Years 1915-2005, Kathy Bolster records Hebert’s positive take on Sheehan’s approach: “He immediately raised the salaries of the older men, while at the same time relieving them of the 22

Jim Moore began as an English teacher at Canterbury in 1950. He later went on to become the School’s Assistant Headmaster.

long hours of dormitory supervision. The faculty, which numbered approximately ten, rotated dorm duty about every third weekend, plus a couple of nights during the week.” Many of today’s faculty reading this would note with wonder that working only every third weekend in the dorm was considered a relief, as these days it tends to be every five weeks, but back then the faculty who were given housing were on duty six nights a week. It was hard work, yet it was customary.

Jim Moore, who came to Canterbury’s faculty as an English teacher in 1950, later to be named assistant Hhead, said of Sheehan, “Loyalty [was] everything, disloyalty must be terminated.” Sheehan would threaten complaining faculty members by suggesting they either quiet down or resign. Yet the record shows that he also had a sympathetic approach to long-serving, hard-working faculty. He did not replace anyone from the Hume years when he took over.

Many of the letters we have from Hume and Sheehan make offers to potential faculty that include statements that the men will have to find their own housing. Many valuable men were lost for lack of decent housing in town, and to address this, Sheehan and the Board, starting in 1953, built houses on school grounds and purchased or rented others in the village. Today we take the offer of housing for granted, but in the early days, the School had no such luxury.

Jim Moore was one of Sheehan’s early hires, and we have, in the form of a 1952 letter from William Avirett, the vice-p resident of Colgate, Moore’s alma mater, a sense of how Sheehan searched for and vetted the faculty he wanted under him. Because Sheehan and Avirett were fraternity brothers at Williams, Sheehan went to Avirett as someone he knew and trusted.

Jim Moore was one of Sheehan’s early hires, and we have, in the form of a 1952 letter from William Avirett, the vice-president of Colgate, Moore’s alma mater, a sense of how Sheehan searched for and vetted the faculty he wanted under him. Because Sheehan and Avirett were fraternity brothers at Williams, Sheehan went to Avirett as someone he knew and trusted.

“Dear Twit, I am delighted to have your letter and particularly pleased that you have taken on Jimmy Moore of our class of 1950. I have been inquiring about him since your letter came and have heard not only excellent things from George Werntz, who has just resigned as Director of Admissions, but from Bill Griffith who is taking over the Admissions assignment. Both of these men have their feet very much on the ground and know what they are talking about when it comes to sizing up the undergraduate.”

The “Twit” in the salutation of the above letter was a nickname that Walter Sheehan carried with him from his native Holyoke. Some said he was so called because he liked to twit or pull the leg of people. The other explanation was that it began when, as a student, he delivered a line from Shakespeare: “To wit, to woo…”

The letter from Sheehan to Avirett is a good example of how faculty hiring occurred before the advent of firms like Carney & Sandoe, whose teacher hiring conferences I now deal with and which are massive and international. Sheehan, like Hume before him, relied on a network of preexisting contacts. There was a smallness to the world of New England prep schools that obviated the need for the professional agencies so relied upon today. Avirett’s scouting report, moreover, proved to be quite predictive, as Moore was named Assistant Head in 1958, the first since Alec Hume’s death in 1938, and then went on to become a headmaster himself at another Catholic lay school, the newly created LaLumiere School of Indiana in 1963. Sheehan, as a sign of respect for his former assistant head, sat on the Board of LaLumiere for many years.

With Hume’s death, the English Department needed a new leader, and Sheehan again used his relationships with other Heads to find a suitable person to head the department. In April of 1950, Sheehan wrote to James Wickenden, Head at Tabor Academy, to ask permission to approach Eugene Reilly, who was on the Tabor faculty. Wickenden responded, “Reilly will come to you with my blessing! You will find him an able assistant to the headmaster, an excellent assistant in the English Department… a fine athletic coach, and an idealist, if I have ever known one.” Sheehan immediately closed the deal with Reilly who took over in 1950. Reilly was a graduate of Amherst College, and although his tenure lasted only until 1957 when he took a job in public relations, he and his wife Isabelle later became trustees, and their children, Kevin ’68, Gene ’78 and Ellen ’82, graduated from Canterbury.

After Bill D’Alton ’42, graduated from Canterbury, he went to Yale but left for combat in the War. He began teaching at Canterbury in 1949. Shortly thereafter, he did a short stint as the head of the English Department of the Cate School in California but returned to Canterbury where he took the reins of the English Department when Gene Reilly left in 1957. Bill finished his career in 1989. JP Mandler recalls “Wild Bill” as a demanding teacher whose wit lightened many a day: “Bill was a very

funny man, as he used to say (à la Falstaff) that he wasn’t only funny in himself, but he was the cause of humor in other men. When a colleague pointed out one day that his socks were different colors, he returned, “Yes. I have another pair just like this at home.” When we would ask how his day was going, his response was either “Piping down the valleys wild,” or “The daws are cawing in the rooky wood.”

As swim coach, during the first weeks of grueling practices, he would respond to boys’ begging to lighten the drills, by saying, “You haven’t reached your threshold of pain yet.” He was wacky in a good way in class, and funny, and the kids loved him.”

D’Alton also found himself inheriting the production of the school play, which Jim Moore left him upon his departure to Indiana.

Again, as with so many of the men recalled here, Bill D’Alton gave his life to Canterbury. It speaks to why Canterbury School is a special place. Alums certainly mean it when they gush about what the school did for them and the fondness they hold for their time here, but as I document the number of faculty who came here and stayed for, essentially, a lifetime, I cannot help but think

English teacher Gene Reilly served the School from 1950-1957.

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“Bill was a very funny man, as he used to say (à la Falstaff) that he wasn’t only funny in himself, but he was the cause of humor in other men. When a colleague pointed out one day that his socks were different colors, he returned, “Yes. I have another pair just like this at home.”

Bill D’Alton ’42 arrived as a teacher at Canterbury in 1949. After a brief stint at the Cate School in California, D’Alton returned to his alma mater in 1957 to head the English Department.

that this devotion speaks the most forcefully of all about the positive ethos of the School. In many ways the story of the place lies in the careers of these men.

If Bill D’Alton was a Canterbury diehard, then certainly Rod Clarke followed closely at his heels. Clarke graduated in 1946 and returned to Canterbury as a history teacher by 1954. His tenure as headmaster will be covered in the next commemorative PALLIUM issue, but he was, first, a great teacher. When I asked current faculty member and Rod Clarke’s contemporary, JP Mandler, about Rod in the classroom, JP was quick to note Clarke’s method of narrative instruction: “Rod and I taught in adjoining classrooms back in the ’70s. I often had my kids writing during class. Since Rod taught with his door open, I very much enjoyed the whole story of Mad Ludvig in his castle told in Rod’s expressive, distinctive voice. Rod made history into stories, and he mesmerized his students with them.”

In his address at Canterbury’s 75th Anniversary, Tom Gerety ’64 reminisced about Rod as his Third Form medieval history teacher. “One day Clarke populated an entire kingdom with members of our class. One was king and one was lord; one a banker, one a bishop, one a soldier and one a peasant. Each assignment brought laughter, then questions, and lengthy commentaries. Conn Nugent ’64 and I were intellectual rivals and friends. We sat at the back murmuring objections as all life’s great parts were dispensed and digested. Only towards the end of class did Mr. Clarke peer back at the two of us. We still waited our assignments.

‘And you, Conn Nugent, and you, Tom Gerety, what of you?’ He paused with a great flourish of suspense and delight. Then, intoning each word, he said, ‘You two shall be friars of the Cistercian Abbey of Je-ne-sais-ou.’

He had hardly let the words out before Nugent jumped up in exuberant 24

protest. ‘Absurd! Never!’ Not on my life.’ And then I asked, ‘Why us?’

‘Because,’ Mr. Clarke said. ‘you are such good students that you have no need of titles or fortunes or even a plot of land, you will make your way with only your minds.’ I recall the bell ringing dully, books and desks slamming, the feet of classmates shuffling out toward the next class, the next adventure.”

Rod’s first Canterbury assignment outside of the classroom was to serve as alumni secretary. By 1957, Sheehan, recognizing Rod’s dedication to education, appointed Clarke Director of Studies. In reviewing the many tributes that were published in the PALLIUM memorializing him after his death in 2006, one recollection in particular spoke to his skills as a teacher.

David Esterly, the husband of Rod Clarke’s niece Marietta, recalled (at a reception after a service for Clarke in Utica, NY) a conversation he had with Rod in the days before his death: “It was not quite like any other conversation I had had with Rod. As I recall, it began with my telling him about the assistants I’d been hiring to help me with my work. I mentioned how I liked the workshop dynamic, how its combination of camaraderie and competition made for a productive atmosphere. At this, Rod brightened

and said, “Oh yes, like a classroom. Collegiality and competition.” It was brought home to me in a flash: ah, yes, this is a teacher I’m talking to, a man who lives and breathes teaching who many have told me was the best they ever had.

I went on to say that the secret fear of anybody who runs a workshop is that the assistants will break away and set up independently, and then eclipse you with their success. Rod said, “But that’s what a teacher hopes will happen.” Then he said, “The best thing of all is when your students get closer and closer and closer to you as the years go on, so that they end up like family.”

Clarke saying that a teacher hopes his students will eclipse him defines a major characteristic of the culture of Canterbury School. The School’s history, as seen through its faculty, can be thought of as a long line of students who were expected to eclipse their teachers. It can be read in Jean Hebert not tolerating second-rate work. It can be heard in Bill D’Alton joking that his swimmers have not reached their threshold of pain.

Rod Clarke is also the first of the many faculty I have written about whom I actually knew personally. I was hired in 1999, and Rod still lived on Elkington Farm Road, although he had retired in 1991.What immediately struck me about him was the breadth of his intellectual interests. Much like Jean Hebert, he wanted to talk about literature with me, but he also could converse on just about any topic. His erudition and his long tenure at Canterbury reassured me about taking a position here.

Rod was a consummate School Man, and he was one of the people who made me want to be one, too. He retired on the cusp of the School’s 75th Anniversary, and during his tenure, it is safe to say that there was no more necessary a man than he.

Two necessary men who became Canterbury teachers in the second quarter century are Jim Briggs ’56 and Roger DesRoches. Briggs, a current trustee, was the first son of an alumnus (Walter O. Briggs ’30) to become a Canterbury faculty member, and he and DesRoches are written about more extensively in the article in this PALLIUM on Canterbury athletics of the period. Peter Cashman ’55 was hired as a history teacher in 1960, but his short tenure did not undercut his necessity to the School, as he went on to become the Director of Development for the 50th Anniversary Drive. He later left to work in politics, serving as Connecticut’s Lieutenant Governor in 1973 during Governor Thomas Meskill’s term. His grandson, John Calcagni ’16, is currently enrolled at Canterbury.

Bob Wray, a graduate of Notre Dame, was hired in 1958 and, in the words of Stephen Murphy ’62, became a “compelling history teacher.” He was also an excellent coach, and by 1964 he was Canterbury’s Director of Athletics. After the departure of Jim Moore, Wray became Assistant Head.

In 1970, he went on to become Head at Villa Duschene, Convent of the Sacred Heart in St. Louis for seven years and then at Stoneleigh-Burnham School in Greenfield, MA, for 18 years.

Many long-term faculty members were hired towards the end of this period and will be covered in the next issue. They include Jim Shea, Jim Breene, Jules Viau, Weldon Knox, Jack Graney, Gerry Vanasse, Paul Cauchon, John Martiska, John Coffin, Charlie Huntington, and Gilda Martin. The School chaplains during this period, Fr. Quinn and Fr. Ryan, are included in the article on the Chapel of Our Lady.

The 50th Anniversary signals the end of our second era and this piece.

From U-boats to Mad Ludvig and from the subterranean to the top of the hill, Canterbury’s faculty both responded to and shaped the period of history that brought the School to its half-century mark. As I came to know the stories of these teachers, I was left with no doubt that Hume and Sheehan found, nurtured, and celebrated the men necessary to make Canterbury an institution that, as Hume argued, “properly prepared boys of high school age” during an unsettled time and beyond.

Rod Clarke ’46 began his Canterbury career as a history teacher in 1954. He would later go on to be the School’s fourth headmaster.

Jim Briggs ’56 and Peter Cashman ’55 started as history teachers at Canterbury in 1960. Cashman later became the Director of Development for the School’s 50th Anniversary Drive, and Briggs later became a School trustee, a role he still serves.

Clarke saying that a teacher hopes his students will eclipse him defines a major characteristic of the culture of Canterbury School.

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By Bryan Kiefer

Canterbury’s Campus 1940-1965

Stymied by war shortages and a lack of money, Nelson Hume was forced to put his plans for increasing the size of the physical plant on hold. His successor Walter Sheehan, in partnership with the trustees, raised funds to construct major facilities to accommodate a growing student body.

A

s Canterbury completed its first quarter century in June of 1940, the School community had every reason to be proud of its campus. From the original leased facilities of the former Ingleside School for Girls, Canterbury had grown to include 135 acres and six impressive new buildings, including the Chapel of Our Lady; the gymnasium; North, South, and Middle Houses; and the schoolhouse. This dramatic progress was achieved despite the intervention of WWI and the Great Depression. Few schools Canterbury’s size could boast of a swimming pool, and fewer still had such a distinguished chapel, complete with a carillon and stained glass of rare beauty.

In the next 25 years, from 19401965, construction on campus would resume, but not until after the interruption of World War II, the death of Nelson Hume in June 1948, and the subsequent appointment of Walter Sheehan as Canterbury’s second headmaster.

During the war years, a shortage of building materials and restrictions on new building prevented following through on any plans for new buildings. In fact, there was no new construction on campus for a decade, from the completion of the north wing of the schoolhouse, which opened on January 9, 1940, until the construction of the infirmary, which was dedicated on October 21, 1950.

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In the mid-1950s, students roll the new track, part of a plan to expand Canterbury’s athletic facilities. Crews converted the School’s apple orchard, to the east of Aspetuck Avenue, into playing fields for football, baseball, and soccer.

Hume began thinking about building an infirmary in 1946. In a letter to Carl Badenhausen in March of 1946, Hume thanked the Badenhausens for their planned contribution to the project. In a later letter, in May, he cautioned that building restrictions prevented going forward at the time. He expressed his hope that the construction would start in September and be ready for the 1947-48 school year. It was not

to be. According to the minutes of the June 12, 1946, Board meeting, “Dr. Hume stated that in order to increase the capacity of the School, he believed it desirable to build a new infirmary building, which would provide additional accommodations for 18 to 20 students in the space now used in Middle House as the School infirmary. Dr. Hume stated that he had been discussing with architects, engineers, and

Any headmaster or trustee can appreciate Nelson Hume’s dilemma. Like all good heads, Hume was eager to give his students the very best facilities; plus he was always keen to upgrade the campus for purposes of effectively marketing the School and attracting the best students. contractors the feasibility of constructing a new infirmary building, and requested authorization to proceed to negotiate a contract for the erection of a suitable infirmary.” The Board approved the formation of a building committee consisting of Hubert McDonnell, Thomas Krug, and Nelson Hume.

On December 11, 1946, Hume met with trustees Francis T. Carmody, Fortune Peter Ryan, Tom Krug, Hubert McDonnell, and Marvin Laidlaw and told them the building would cost $133,000 and that the building fund had just $55,718. The estimate for the building would go through many revisions because of fluctuating costs before it was finally completed.

Three days later, on December 14, Hume wrote to Henry Havemeyer to share his concerns on the cost of the infirmary building and the difficulty in getting building materials in the wake of the War. “I always have to get behind a proposition whole-heartedly myself before I can propose it to anyone else, and I am still rather vague about the advisability of pushing ahead fast with the building. One thing makes me feel very good: There is a positive move among the alumni, not only to organize themselves as an alumni association, but to get behind a campaign for funds. When something like that gets under way, I may have more courage and determination about going ahead with the building operation.”

Any headmaster or trustee can appreciate Nelson Hume’s dilemma.

Like all good heads, Hume was eager to give his students the very best facilities; plus he was always keen to upgrade the campus for purposes of effectively marketing the School and attracting the best students. At the same time, he faced the immediate need of controlling project costs and raising necessary funds. This yin and yang between grand ambitions and financial limitations has characterized Canterbury, indeed most academic institutions, from its earliest days until the present moment.

A year later, at the Board of Trustees meeting held on June 13, 1947, Hume reiterated his conviction that Canterbury needed the new infirmary, as well as the enlargement of the gymnasium, chapel, and administrative offices of the School. The next day, he wrote to Henry Havemeyer to report on the Board meeting, sharing that project costs continued to rise: “I will not know positively how much the increase is going to be until sometime next week, when final figures are in, and at that time I will have a consultation with the trustees on this topic–should we go ahead with the building at this time when costs are still rising?”

On June 17, 1947, Henry Havemeyer responded to Hume: “I think it is a very poor time to embark upon construction of any kind. You have been able to do without an infirmary this year, and I would certainly wait another year before embarking on any new construction. As to the estimates you have, it is going to cost you much more than $80,000 before it is completed.” On July 8, 1947, Hume informed Francis Carmody that he and McDonnell and Krug of the building committee had all agreed to wait. He added that John Burke and Havemeyer had also agreed to wait.

The estimated cost was now $97,000.

The following spring, on April 28, 1948, Havemeyer wrote Hume for an update: “Sometime, when you find time, I should be pleased to hear how things are going and what progress, if any, has been made for building

the infirmary.” Hume responded the next day: “The trouble is that every time I have estimates made, the estimate goes up. Last June, after many revisions and reductions in the building which we had planned to build for $75,000, the figure came in at about $85,000. We estimated it again last autumn, and the amount was around $93,000. I took it up again and had another estimate made just after the first of the year, and the figure then was $103,000… I simply cannot see the wisdom of trying to put up a building at such cost as this…”

Within two months, Nelson Hume was dead. Responsibility for the infirmary, and other future additions to Canterbury’s campus, passed to new headmaster Walter Sheehan. Faced with an aging physical plant and convinced from his tenure at Deerfield Academy that a bigger school was desirable, he adopted a strategy of growing enrollment in order to generate cash for campus projects. Sheehan was to prove himself a builder by temperament. As he started to address vital repairs to roofs and boilers, he continued the process of planning and raising funds for the new infirmary building.

In a letter of March 29, 1949, to John Burke, Walter Sheehan reported on a visit to Dorothy and Carl Badenhausen, a generous and loyal Canterbury family that had sent three boys (Carl ’42, Robert ’45 and Richard ’55) to Canterbury: “The Badenhausens greeted us in a wonderful spirit, and are intensely interested in the School… They did say that the $50,000 they gave was expressly for the Infirmary.” In a letter to Mr. Sheehan dated October 26, 1949, Francis Carmody wrote that “I certainly agree with you that we should go ahead on the new infirmary… While I go along with your views that it would be desirable to have a new wing on the School Building and an activities building to round out the School’s plant nevertheless I feel that it is premature to discuss the need for these buildings at the present time. We may have 27

to ask some of the parents to help us with the building of the infirmary.

To mention other proposed additions at this time appears to me to be scattering our fire.”

The project continued to gather steam. In a letter of January 17, 1950, to Hubert McDonnell, Sheehan wrote: “I was delighted with the decision to go ahead with the Infirmary and have just returned from Chicago where I have been trying to round up some money.”

By that spring, the May 24, 1950, The Tabard reported that construction of the foundation was underway, and on Homecoming Day on October 21, 1950, the new building was blessed by Chaplain Fr. Quinn. It had taken ten years of planning, but now Canterbury had a new infirmary building consisting of spacious rooms for ailing students, a physiotherapy room, a dispensary, a kitchen, and nurses’ quarters. The infirmary was generously furnished and equipped by B. Altman & Company, where trustee John Burke ’41 was a senior executive and, eventually, president and CEO. Sick students now had a quieter place to rest, and Middle House freed up space for more tuition paying students.

At the March 1953 Board meeting, a plan was presented to build a faculty home to be occupied by Gene Reilly. It would accommodate four boys downstairs at an estimated cost of $26,000. The house, located to the north of the chapel, was completed in the summer of 1953. Frank Fisher had previously built a house on the southern edge of School property in 1950, and Phil Brodie would build a house next to it. Two more faculty houses were built near the Reilly house in 1957. A Tabard article of April, 30, 1956, states that during the summer of 1956 the Fishers were converting their garage into rooms for four students. Only the Brodie house did not have room for boarding boys in the basement or an addition. Even Mr. Mack built a room off the back of his house to accommodate four boys.

The Board of Trustee’s meeting in New York City on January 1954, awarded the contract for the construction of the south wing of the schoolhouse to the New Milford firm of Buckingham and Schultz Construction Company. An addition to the schoolhouse had been discussed for years, and Walter Sheehan began to focus on this project in earnest in 1952, when he began a fund drive. In a letter on October 13, 1952, to former faculty member John Weadock, Sheehan reported that

The infirmary was added to the physical plant in 1950.

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“We mailed out brochures to the parents and alumni around the first of June and have received to date $55,000 to the endowment fund and $10,500 for the building fund. It is my hope that between now and Christmas we can pick up enough to put us in the six-figure bracket. When that is accomplished and the Fund really set up, we may be able to encourage a few people to give money for the wing of the School Building.”

That hope was realized in late 1953, when trustee Fortune Peter Ryan made a substantial gift to provide the leadership financing for the project. In a letter to Ryan on December 14, 1953, Francis Carmody thanked him for his generosity: “The receipt of this substantial sum would be of tremendous importance at any time; its receipt just now, however, insures the construction and completion of the new School House wing on time for the opening of school next fall.”

The contractors broke ground in April, and the building was ready by the start of school in September.

The new wing added a new physics and biology laboratory on the first floor, and four new classrooms on the upper floor. Though the internal layout has changed over the years, and the building was substantially renovated in 1998, the added south wing completed the Old School House that graces the campus today.

With funding in hand and construction underway on the schoolhouse addition, Sheehan turned his attention to another matter of importance. In a May 14, 1954, letter to Francis Carmody, Mr. Sheehan wrote “The other item that has been plaguing my thoughts is the fact that our athletic facilities enable us to take care adequately of only eighty plus boys.” School enrollment at this point was 165 students, so the remainder were not able to participate on teams and were kept “busy playing softball in the afternoon.”

Sheehan’s plan was to convert the orchard on the east side of Aspetuck Avenue to playing fields

and a track. In a May 14 letter to Carmody, he went on to say, “David Durant ’30, who is in the business of building tennis courts, was down last Saturday, and I brought him up to the orchard site.

He told me that he, personally, would supervise the job of clearing out the orchard, leveling and seeding and trimming the fields at a total cost of $6,000. With a view in mind of being able to take care of all the boys who want to play tennis and the number of boys the new track would bring in (Mr. Brodie estimates that he could handle forty to fifty boys with a real track instead of the hard clay), we would then be in a much sounder position. This new site would include also places for tennis courts which could be built perhaps at the rate of one per year. We would then have excellent athletic facilities that would enable us to take care of all our students in the spring season. My suggestion and hope is, because we deem it very important to school morale and the school’s future, that instead of turning over the overage in the School’s building fund to the endowment fund, we use it to make the big step for athletic facilities.”

In this instance, we see another dilemma faced by Canterbury’s headmasters and trustees over the years: whether to raise funds for the endowment or for facilities. Both are critically important to the health of the School, but improvements to plant pay an immediate dividend by serving present students and attracting new students to the School. Walter Sheehan closes his letter to Carmody with his own judgment on this eternal trade off: “I have thought long and seriously about this problem, and I would not ask such action if I did not deem it in the very best interests of the school.”

Work on the fields began immediately, but the baseball diamond was not ready for play until spring of 1956. As reported in the June 4, 1955, Tabard, Canterbury students played an important part: “The boys who are not out for any sport during

A sketch of the south wing of the Old Schoolhouse. Contractors broke ground in April 1954, and it was ready for use the following September.

the spring term have devoted all their time to the progress of the field.

A reward of a Friday night movie has driven some of the brethren out to work on Saturdays.” According to The Tabard, student workers, supervised by teachers Roger DesRoches and Jim Moore, worked digging ditches, laying drain pipe, clearing stones, and planting grass seed.

The “dummy shack,” the small cinder block building still extant on the upper field, was also added in 1956. Walter Sheehan’s letter to Francis Carmody of April 24, 1956, tells the tale: “The new track and field make it desirable to build a little building to house hurdles, football dummies, and other things of that nature near the field. Upon hearing of this, I spoke to the boys at an evening meeting about it, and four days later a father called to say that he would gladly pay for the thing, which will cost $1,000. It will be made of cinder block, 24 feet in length and 16 feet deep, which will be adequate for our purposes.”

At the Board of Trustees meeting on March 18, 1955, the trustees considered an offer from the Robertson Bleachery in downtown New Milford to donate to Canterbury their hockey rink, where Canterbury’s hockey team had been skating for several years. Interest in hockey had surged in recent years, and trustees were favorably inclined towards the project as a rink on school property would afford longer practice sessions, eliminate transportation issues, and assure greater potential for winning seasons. The trustees resolved to accept the donation, based on a cost estimate of $17,000 to move the pipes, sideboards, and machinery from the Bleachery and to install them next to the gymnasium; to grade the new site and install a hut to house the machinery; and to rebuild old equipment and buy some new equipment. To pay for this work, the Board voted to allocate to the project a $5,000 bequest from Mrs. Walter O. Briggs, Sr. (mother of Walter, Jr. ’30; grandmother of then current student Jim Briggs ’56, now a trustee, and his two brothers Walter III ’52 and Basil “Mickey” ’54; great-grandmother of Walter Briggs IV ’75, and great-great grandmother of Walter V ’04) and to raise funds for the remaining $12,000.

The Board stipulated that the project was not to begin until the remaining funds were successfully “in hand.”

Trustee Fortune Peter “Pete” Ryan promptly kicked in $10,000 to make the project a “go.” Just as he had with his critical gift to the south wing to 29

Work on the rink was delayed by the infamous Flood of 1955 caused by two back-to-back hurricanes in August 1955. With huge damage state-wide and more than 80 deaths attributed to the flood, the State of Connecticut commandeered all heavy equipment to work in disaster areas. As a result, work on the rink ground to a standstill.

Shown here during the first day of pipe-moving at the Robertson Bleachery are members of the Fifth and Sixth Forms atop the trucks and dollies on which the 90-foot brine pipe sections were loaded.

the School House two years before, Ryan gave his gift anonymously.

He is one of several angel donors who have made generous gifts at strategically important times over the years, making a critical impact on Canterbury and its students.

Transportation of the rink was begun on April 8, 1955, when two school carpenters dismantled the wooden sideboards and transported them, together with accessory equipment and the hot water resurfacer, to the school gymnasium. A group of 12 students under the supervision of faculty member Roger DesRoches stacked the 90-foot long pipes, by legend originally used at Madison Square Garden, alongside the rink, waiting for an appropriate truck to transport them to campus.

Work on the rink was delayed by the infamous Flood of 1955 caused by two back-to-back hurricanes in August 1955. With huge damage 30

state-wide and more than 80 deaths attributed to the flood, the State of Connecticut commandeered all heavy equipment to work in disaster areas. As a result, work on the rink ground to a standstill. Despite this delay, contractor M.S. Daly Company of Waterbury completed the rink in January 1956, ably assisted by additional student work squads.

Former Board President Bill O’Connor ’57, then a Fifth Form reporter for The Tabard, reported on one such student work effort during the week of November 21: “Varsity Hockey candidates under the direction of Mr. Hebert completed a vital phase in the installation of Canterbury’s new hockey rink, spreading several truckloads of sand on the bottom of the rink. The project was not without setbacks, the most annoying of which was the misplacement of a large load of

sand. The boys had to remove the whole pile but it did not dampen their zeal.”

On Sunday, January 8, 1956, the new rink was christened, hosting the annual contest between the Canterbury hockey team and the alumni. Alumni players included Dickson Fairback and George Hogben of the Class of 1955, Herb McLaughlin ’52, Bill Durean ’51, Joe Argus ’50, and Ed Duffy ’49. The varsity squad included captain John Vollbrecht ’56, John Kerney ’54, Rory Mullett ’56, Tom Casey ’56, Jim Briggs ’56, and Jack Heffernan ’58.

The game ended in a 1-1 tie.

During the construction of the new rink, Canterbury planted, as a sunshield for the ice rink, young white pines along Aspetuck Avenue that remain, now grown to maturity.

On September 27, 1957, Sheehan received a letter from David Durant agreeing to build two Red Durite

The headmaster’s home was built in 1962. Its spacious first floor provided ample room for social events.

asphalt tennis courts for $4,000.

These courts were built behind South House (now Carter). In March of 1958, Lyons and Mather submitted architectural plans for the addition to the dining hall. In the May 1958 meeting, the Board approved the expansion. The estimated cost was $30,000, but it cost $45,903 in the end. The extension or “the new wing” was in use by the late fall of 1959.

Since the founding of the School, the two headmasters had lived in dormitory buildings. The Humes lived first in the Main House, and subsequently moved to spacious quarters in North House. When the Sheehans arrived on campus after Nelson Hume’s death, they moved into the Hume home in North House. As the School’s enrollment and the administrative needs of the School grew, it became clear to Mr. Sheehan that his home’s floor space could be put to better use.

At the October 1, 1961, meeting of the Board of Trustees, the Board resolved to “erect a new headmaster’s house at a cost of approximately $85,000 and to remodel the present headmaster’s house to provide rooms for six additional students and offices for the headmaster, business office, and admissions office activities.”

Designed by architect Thomas Lyons of Lyons and Mather, parent of Tom ’59, the house was centrally located in a commanding position on the top of the hill. Lyons designed the addition to the chapel and the expansion of the dining room, and he later designed four more buildings: Havemeyer House, Alumni Gymnasium, Nelson Hume Hall, and Carmody House.

In addition to being a comfortable home for the headmaster’s family, the new house’s spacious first floor provided ample room for social events such as opening day

teas for parents and students and receptions for faculty and trustees. The second floor included two guest rooms to accommodate School visitors.

In North House, the former sun porch was converted to Mr. Sheehan’s office. The dining room became the sanctuary of Miss Powers, his secretary. The kitchen was transformed into an office for Roderick Clarke ’46, then the Director of Studies and College Counselor. The Humes’ living room became a reception room.

The second and third floors were converted into students’ rooms,

…the Board resolved to “erect a new headmaster’s house at a cost of approximately $85,000 and…

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yielding more tuition revenue.

During the construction of their new home, the Sheehans lived first in the Phil Brodie home on Aspetuck Avenue and then in the infirmary until the house was finished shortly before Christmas of 1962.

By the 1961-1962 school year, most Fourth Formers were living off campus in the houses of faculty or former faculty members. Mr. Sheehan and the trustees became increasingly unhappy about this situation, feeling it was not conducive to an integrated school life. To this end, and in anticipation of the coming 50th Anniversary of the School’s founding, the Board of Trustees, at their October 1, 1961, meeting, set in motion an organized fund drive for $1,800,000.

The campaign had five priorities: a new dormitory, a new gymnasium, a combination classroom and auditorium building, a second dormitory, and an increased endowment for increased faculty salaries and a scholarship fund.

Fundraising proceeded apace, and on May 11, 1963, May Hume and head proctor Des Barry ’63 turned the first shovels in the official groundbreaking for Havemeyer Hall. It consisted of 40 student rooms, a ground floor common room complete with fireplace, a large attic for storage, and spacious four-bedroom homes for two faculty families. As such, it was designed not to expand but rather to consolidate the student body on campus. The new dorm was the first of the five goals of the 50th Anniversary Development Program to be realized.

Architecturally, the vaguely Georgian style of the building was a departure from the existing campus motif. Neither stucco like the lower campus buildings, nor stone like the chapel and the gymnasium, the durable cinder block construction, long straight hallways, and economical brick façade of Havemeyer House is said to be influenced by the dorms at Deerfield Academy, Mr. Sheehan’s alma mater. It conformed with Sheehan’s declaration early in his 32

Groundbreaking for Havemeyer Hall in 1963. Des Barry ’63, head proctor, turns the soil. In the background, l-r: Regis Ryan, O.P., chaplain; Donal McDonnell, President of the Board of Trustees; trustees May Hume and Tom Murray II ’44, headmaster Walter Sheehan, architect Tom Lyons.

tenure that his goal was to “build solid buildings.” The first dorm parents were John Martiska and Jules Viau. A group of Fourth and Fifth Formers, together with their proctors, 40 students in all, moved into the new dorm when they returned from spring break in early April. The final cost of the building was $387,000.

The new dormitory was dedicated on Spring Day on May 16, 1964, blessed by School chaplain Fr. Regis Ryan O.P., and named in honor of Henry Havemeyer, who attended the dedication. In his remarks on this occasion, Francis T. Carmody ’25 praised Havemeyer for his critical role in founding the School. “How fitting it is that you are here today to see the transfer of the custody of the Canterbury Idea from a small group of old friends to a much larger segment of Catholic laymen, namely, all those with the intelligence, imagination, and spirit to sense the nobility of its aims. It is my honor and privilege to dedicate this building, just blessed by Fr.

Ryan, as Havemeyer Hall.”

On the same Spring Day that Fr. Ryan blessed Havemeyer Hall, Phil Brodie, now retired, and others broke ground for the new gymnasium. The entire student body witnessed the event, first listening to Walter Sheehan speak of the Canterbury community’s generous response to the fund drive and the need for the new gymnasium (cover photo). Conn Nugent ’64, head proctor, spoke on behalf of the student body, addressing the need for campus development and the imperative of maintaining Canterbury’s traditional purpose and character. Frank Cavanagh, head of the Parents’ Committee, and Board President Donal McDonnell also participated.

Construction on the gymnasium began immediately after Commencement in June 1964.

Enthusiasm for the functionality of the project was high, as the building would include a new basketball court, locker rooms and shower facilities for home and visiting teams, space for

coaches and officials, an office for the athletic director, a training room, and an equipment store.

An exceptional feature of the new building was the donation by the Briggs family: Walter O. Briggs, Jr. ’30 and his three sons Walter III ’52, Mickey ’54, and Jim ’56, of a large lounge with an adjacent kitchen for meetings and social gatherings. It was named the Brodie Room, and Mr. Brodie’s portrait, painted at the time of his retirement as a gift from friends of Mr. Brodie, hangs on the south wall.

Though the building was admirably economical and durable, critics at the time pointed out that the exterior design of the building was not compatible with other buildings on campus nor the old gym to which it was attached.

For example, it has a flat roof not peaked; light brick instead of granite; and utilized window walls and aluminum framing instead of stone window trim. The Board listened to these critiques but in

the end, economics prevailed.

Though work was held up briefly by a delay in the delivery of the heating system and the maple flooring of the basketball court, the project moved forward quickly and was ready for use in a basketball game against Kent School on February 10, 1965.

The new gym was dedicated on Spring Day on May 8, 1965. Fr. Regis Ryan blessed the gym and its future users. Head proctor Chuck Ragan ’65 introduced classmate Bill Daley ’65 who, speaking on behalf of the student body, compared the experiences of playing in the old gym with the new one. The second speaker was Christopher “Toby” Smith ’56, who spoke for the alumni. He was followed by his father, trustee Richard Joyce Smith who, speaking for the trustees, explained how he felt the gym added a “sounder” body to Canterbury’s sound mind. Athletic Director Bob Wray followed, praising the new building and

Retired teacher Phil Brodie sits with Walter Sheehan in the Brodie Room, a reception area for athletic events. The room was part of the gym expansion.

Fundraising proceeded apace, and on May 11, 1963, May Hume and head proctor Des Barry ’63 turned the first shovels in the official groundbreaking for Havemeyer Hall. It consisted of 40 student rooms, a ground floor common room complete with fireplace, a large attic for storage, and spacious four-bedroom homes for two faculty families. explaining that the old upstairs basketball court, now unused, would be utilized as a dressing room for visiting teams and for a proposed wrestling team. Finally, Mr. Sheehan thanked everyone who had played a role in building the gym, especially the trustees and donors who had supported the 50th Anniversary Fund Drive.

As Canterbury began to celebrate its 50th year, and Walter Sheehan looked back on his 17 years as headmaster, he could take pride in the added buildings on campus: the infirmary, the headmaster’s house, Havemeyer Hall–and the additions to existing buildings–the “new wing” of the dining room, the extension to the chapel, the south wing of the schoolhouse, and the gymnasium. In addition, the expanded athletic fields were a boon to the athletic program, enabling all boys to participate in sports every afternoon. Sheehan had not yet realized his dream of an activities building (which became the Hume Building) and a second dorm. That part of his goal would be fulfilled in the next decade.

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A

By Bryan Kiefer with Lou Mandler

The Chapel 1940-1965 While the expanded Chapel of Our Lady made a major statement about the School’s growth, the interior saw important additions of church artwork, including new stained windows and statues by artists of note.

In 1960, Canterbury doubled the size of the Chapel of Our Lady to accommodate a growing student enrollment.

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fter the Chapel of Our Lady was completed and blessed in June of 1928, alumni and parents continued to contribute to the aesthetics of the chapel through donations of stained glass windows and other accessories to the building and of sacred vessels used during Mass. Nelson Hume actively participated in decisions involving the design and execution of everything related to the chapel.

Of all buildings on campus, he was particularly proud of the chapel architecturally and what it meant as an expression of Catholicism.

He articulated this pride in a letter to the stained glass artist Nicola D’Ascenzo in 1937 when he reported on a visit to the chapel made by artist and friend Luis Mora and his wife. Hume wrote, “After Luis came out of the chapel, he said that his impression that he carried with him through all the sights he had seen in Italy that our chapel was very fine was only confirmed by this new view of the chapel itself… in many ways the artistic beauty of the Canterbury Chapel could well bear comparison with some of the finest things they saw abroad.”

In the fall of 1940, J. Bannigan Sullivan ’25 visited campus and heard Nelson Hume’s vision of a statue of Our Lady to adorn the chapel. Upon returning home, Bannigan wrote to Hume to say it would give him “tremendous pleasure” to donate such a statue in memory of his mother, Alice Bannigan Sullivan. Sullivan and Hume’s subsequent correspondence established that in their concept of the statue, they were unified in agreeing to avoid a modern look typified by a “cheap look, due to shiny painting.” They agreed the statue should be carved of limewood and look somewhat antique. Hume recommended the Boston firm of Irving and Casson to do the work. Founded in Boston in 1875 as a firm of interior designers and furniture makers, Irving & Casson executed a number of commissions for collegiate gothic churches, including the chapels

JOHN MCKEITH ROBERT FERTITTA

Statue of Our Lady, the gift of J. Bannigan Sullivan ’25, in memory of his mother. It was dedicated on May 11, 1941.

The Assumption window, the gift of Mrs. Carl Badenhausen, mother of Carl ’42, Robert ’46, and Richard ’55, in memory of her father.

at Canterbury School, Duke University, and the University of Pittsburgh.

The company’s last major design commission was for the interiors for the United Nations headquarters in New York City, executed in the 1950s.

Because of the Canterbury tradition of the May devotions to Our Lady, Bannigan and Hume hoped that the statue would be installed by May of 1941. In accordance with their plan, one May morning, Dr. Hume asked his Third Form religion class, “Boys, what do you think the Virgin Mary looks like?” With input from his students, Dr. Hume compiled a detailed description, complete to her vestments. He then led the entire class to where workmen were uncrating a large wooden statue that had recently arrived on campus.

The shrine arrived unassembled, with only the gold leaf painted; the artist completed the painting in a cabin the Humes had constructed behind North House. The image is dressed in rich robes of red and blue painted on a surface of beaten gold. It stands to the left and just outside the sanctuary in a 13-foot tall 14th century French Gothic niche of handcarved oak with a spired canopy.

The dedication occurred on May 11, 1941. Attended by 150 guests, including Hume friends Robert and Hilda Shriver, the ceremony began with a concert on the José M. Ferrer Carillon by Melvin Corbet of Darien, after which Dr. Hume addressed the gathering on the importance of the shrine as a center of School life. Sacristans Michael Hume, John Burke, Charles Reeves and Charles Skelly, all of the Class of 1941, served, and Rev. Walter F. Kenny, assisted by Rev. Anthony Bombiliski, blessed the statue and celebrated the Mass. The dedicatory address was given by Rev. Vincent Donovan, O.P., taking as his theme “Our Lady, Cause of Our Liberty.” The students sang “Hail, Queen of Heaven,” and later the entire congregation joined them in a spirited rendition of “Ave Maris Stella.”

As mentioned in the previous PALLIUM, the three windows on the chapel’s north aisle installed after 1940 were created by stained glass artist and Hume friend Nicola D’Ascenzo. D’Ascenzo had also created and installed the chapel’s west window, the stained glass windows in the chancel (sanctuary), the lunette painting of Mary under the original organ pipes and over the entry to the sacristy, and all windows in the south aisle. In May 1942, another D’Ascenzo window was installed in the north aisle which depicted the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven. The gift of Mrs. Carl Badenhausen, mother of Carl ’42, Robert ’46 and Richard ’55, the window is dedicated to her father, Charles Schweinler. In the spring sun, the bright colors of the window immediately adjacent to the newly installed statue of Mary reflect on the statue and vividly bring out its reds and blues, casting a purple mist on the surrounding floor and wall.

The window’s vivid colors of red, orange, and blue immediately catch the eye and hold the attention of the viewer. In the lower part of the window, seven of the 12 disciples are shown with faces and the rest by parts of halos. This is surmounted by a figure of Mary in a pointed oval halo around which are written the words Ave Maria; Ave Regina

…one May morning, Dr. Hume asked his Third Form religion class, “Boys, what do you think the Virgin Mary looks like?” With input from his students, Dr. Hume compiled a detailed description, complete to her vestments. He then led the entire class to where workmen were uncrating a large wooden statue that had recently arrived on campus.

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HEIDI JOHNSON

Donated by trustee John Burke, the St. Michael lunette, painted by Nicola D’Ascenzo, was dedicated on June 6, 1942.

Burke gave it in memory of his son Michael, who died in a drowning accident in July 1941. It graces the interior of the Chapel of Our Lady, just above the inside main doors.

Caeli; Pulchra ut luna; Electa ut Sol, translated as “Hail Mary; Hail Queen of Heaven; Beautiful as the Moon; Bright as the Sun.” Mary is in a white dress ascending through a constellation of stars.

Also in May of 1942, Mr. D’Ascenzo installed his lunette painting over the main doorway inside the chapel. Donated by trustee John Burke (president of B. Altman Company, father of John and Thomas, both of the class of ’41, grandfather of TC ’77, Susan ’87, Michael ’78, and Margo ’76) in memory of his young son Michael, the painting represents the Archangel Michael as described in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 12:7), slaying a dragon.

Michael Burke drowned on July 13, 1941, at age 14, between his Second and Third Form years while at summer camp on Spofford Lake, 36

NH. Archbishop (later Cardinal) Francis J. Spellman presided at Michael’s funeral at St. Vincent Ferrer in New York City. Among the more than 1,000 congregants in attendance were former New York Governor Alfred E. Smith, the first Roman Catholic governor of New York, and former New York City Mayor John P. O’Brien.

Hume arranged the dedication of the Assumption window and the St. Michael lunette on graduation day, June 6, 1942. Nelson Hume wanted to dedicate them in a special ceremony on May 24, but since WWII gas rationing was to go into effect on May 15, and Dr. Hume was concerned that no one would be able to attend, he rescheduled the event for graduation day.

In February of 1944, Nelson Hume and Nicola D’Ascenzo began corresponding about a new stained

glass window to be placed in the north aisle next to the St. Joseph window. It would be donated by the widow of Alfred Seixas Clark and the mother of Alfred Clark ’45 in memory of Alfred Seixas Clark. Nelson selected Saint Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England under Henry VIII, as the subject of this window, because More was a layman who became a saint.

The many letters between Hume and D’Ascenzo between February 1944 and July 1944 illustrate Hume’s obsessive attention to detail and his artistic sensibility.

He was not one to leave design or aesthetic decisions to the artist.

The window is impressive because the upper two-thirds is devoted to a full-length figure of the saint, the head of which was taken from Holbein the Younger’s masterful

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The Thomas More window, donated by the widow of Alfred Seixas Clark and the mother of Alfred Clark ’45 in memory of Alfred Seixas Clark.

The Saint Joseph window, the gift of Mrs. Carl Badenhausen, mother of Carl ’42, Robert ’46, and Richard ’55.

She gave it in memory of her mother Josephine Badenhausen.

portrait of More. The remaining one-third consists of a medallion depicting St. Thomas serving Mass, and four semi-circular inserts representing scenes of importance in his life. One insert pictures the royal coat of arms in order to recall his association with Henry VIII; another depicts him writing Utopia; a third symbolizes his family life, awaiting execution in the company of his daughter Margaret Roper; and the fourth shows him kneeling, cross in hand, before the axe-man’s

block, holding true to his Roman Catholic faith.

As the correspondence between Hume and D’Ascenzo began, Hume wished to have the Thomas More window completed in time for the 1944 graduation. This was not possible because of shortages caused by the war, and fabrication of the window was delayed because permission had to be obtained from the War Production Board. Permission was granted in August of 1944, and Hume then

hoped it would be ready for the November 1944 Requiem when Mrs. Clark would be present. This was not to be. The window was finally installed in March of 1945, and James Clark ’45 enjoyed the window for his last months as a Canterbury student.

The last window installed in the north aisle of the original chapel was again donated by Mrs. Carl Badenhausen, this time in memory of her mother Josephine Schweinler. It was one of the last windows designed and built by D’Ascenzo Studios, which closed soon after Nicola D’Ascenzo’s death in 1954. Dedicated by Canterbury chaplain Fr. Thomas Quinn on Sunday, January 9, 1955, it portrays the life and works of St. Joseph, the foster father of Jesus. Attired in a green alb and a crimson robe, a large portrait of the saint holds carpenter’s tools in one hand and a lily in the other, symbolizing labor and purity. Surrounding St. Joseph are various sketches from his life, all depicted in vivid colors. Joseph’s death scene lies directly below the large central portrait. When viewed as a whole, it is a striking combination of color and light.

The loss of alumni lives in World War II brought several memorials into the chapel. Brothers Willam “Bill” Koch ’39 and Frederick “Fritz” Koch ’42 were killed within months of each other in 1943. Bill, a navy pilot, was killed in a training accident on September 20, 1943, at the Naval Air Base at Pensacola, FL. He had left the University of Pennsylvania to enlist in the navy.

Fritz was killed in a car accident on June 13, 1943. He had just finished his first year at the University of Virginia and was preparing to enlist.

In response to these tragedies, their parents, William and Loretto Koch, donated an inscribed clergy bench, called a sedilia, to Canterbury in memory of their sons. Constructed of sturdy white oak by Irving and Casson, the bench is enriched by two panels of wood carvings and by a memorial inscription which reads: 37

The Scanlon Monstrance, given by the father of Ed Scanlon ’42, who was killed in action over Germany in 1944.

In Memoriam Ensign William L. Koch, Jr., USNR, an alumnus of Canterbury School who gave his life for his country in the twenty fourth year of his age September 20, 1943 Frederick Toomey Koch An alumnus of Canterbury School who died in his nineteenth year June 13, 1943 The bench was first used at the High Mass on Holy Thursday in April of 1944, and it is still used by sacristans.

Ed Scanlon ’42 joined the Army Air Forces at the end of his freshman year at Yale. Ed had attended Canterbury for three years, serving as editor-in-chief of The Tabard in his Sixth Form year.

He rose to the rank of lieutenant, became navigator of a bomber, and flew many missions from England over Germany, including the protection of the D-Day landings over the coast of Normandy. He was reported missing in action on June 29, 1944; not until July of 1945 were his parents notified that he had been killed. His plane had gone down in flames over Germany 38

three weeks after D-Day, and he joined eleven other Canterbury grads represented by gold stars on Canterbury’s service flag.

In August of 1945, Nelson Hume and Edgar Scanlon, Sr. began discussing a memorial to Ed, Jr.

By June of 1949, Mr. Scanlon had donated to the chapel both a gold monstrance, a sacred liturgical vessel which carries and displays the sacred host, and a ciborium, a covered receptacle for holding the consecrated wafers of the Eucharist.

A masterpiece of the goldsmith’s art, the monstrance was designed and fabricated by Louis Feron in New York City. The substance of the monstrance is silvergilt, which is pure silver wrought entirely by hand then plated with pure gold.

It is 30 inches in height and, when placed on the altar, massive in appearance. The design follows the form of the very earliest medieval monstrances, which enclosed the Blessed Sacrament in a glass cylinder like a small transparent tabernacle mounted on a pedestal. On each side of the central cylinder, and in front of the halo, are two adoring angels with outspread wings.

On the four sides of the node or knob on the standard are four circular medallions representing the four evangelists. On the base are four other medallions, three of which represent Our Lord changing water into wine, multiplying the loaves and fishes, and consecrating the bread and wine at the Last Supper. The fourth medallion represents an ancient symbol of the Blessed Sacrament, the pelican.

On the base is engraved the following inscription:

Louis Feron Born in France in 1901, Louis Feron trained in Paris as a goldsmith and silversmith, winning the title “Best chaser, gold- and silversmith of France” in 1933. From 1934–1945, he designed and executed works for church, state, and private clients in Costa Rica. He worked in New York City from 1945–1966, executing art objects and jewelry for Schlumberger, Tiffany, Cartier, Arpels, and Steuben Glass. His works are in the collection of the Musee d’Art Moderne, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH; and the Cathedral of Detroit, MI He died in New Hampshire in 1998 at age 96. The cover of his autobiography features a photo of the Scanlon monstrance.

In Memoriam Lieut. Edgar Clement Scanlon, Jr. USAAF Class of 1942 Killed in Action over Germany June 29, 1944 The Gift of his Father

The Ryan Monstrance, donated in 1959 by Mrs. Sarah Tack Ryan, mother of Allan ’20, Theodore ’23, Fortune Peter ’29, and E. Barry ’37.

Hume himself went to Feron’s New York studio to secure the monstrance in August of 1946.

Afterward he wrote to Feron, “I think you have executed the work to perfection. The production of your craftsmanship and imagination and design is all what we could have hoped for.” The Scanlon monstrance was used at Mass for the first time on January 12, 1947.

Hume described the occasion in a letter to Mr. Scanlon: “I talked to the boys about Ed and your purpose in making the gift, and then I went into the vestry and brought out the monstrance and stood it on a little table in the sanctuary. As I emerged from the door carrying the monstrance, there was a gasp of admiration and astonishment that went through the building.”

In the fall of 1946, Hume turned again to Louis Feron for the Scanlon ciborium: “I know you will be pleased to learn that the donor of the monstrance is so well pleased with your work that he wishes to order a Ciborium…” he wrote. The work on the ciborium was delayed because Feron had to travel to France because of his father’s illness. When the ciborium was finally being completed in 1949, Walter Sheehan was headmaster, and he turned to Fr. Thomas Quinn to supervise its design and delivery. The ciborium arrived at Canterbury in June of 1949 and was first used at the Memorial Mass in November 1949.

A second monstrance was donated to the School in 1959 as part of the estate of Mrs. Sarah Tack Ryan, mother of Allan ’20, Theodore ’23, Fortune Peter ’29, and E. Barry ’37. Her will directed that her silverware be melted down and fashioned into a monstrance, and that the monstrance should be adorned “so far as is suitable and practicable with the stones from all my rings, earrings, and other jewelry not specifically disposed of in this will.” The monstrance was designed by Canterbury chaplain Fr. Quinn and the firm of Black, Starr, and Gorham.

In June 1950, the Board of

The interior of the Chapel of Our Lady with the 1960 extension.

Trustees discussed installing a bronze plaque in the Chapel in memory of Nelson Hume. James Farrell, Jr. ’19 took charge of this project. Knowing the Korean War was causing the government to forbid using bronze for anything but the War, Farrell submitted his order just ahead of the ban, and the plaque was installed on June 2, 1951. Hume’s old friend, trustee Hubert McDonnell, spoke at the dedication.

In the spring of 1958, Canterbury’s trustees adopted a proposal to expand the chapel, and at their fall meeting that year the trustees gave the go ahead to Mr. Sheehan to raise the necessary funds.

Originally designed for a school of 100 boys, the Chapel of Our Lady was expanded in 1960 to hold 250 congregants. Driven by Canterbury’s increased enrollment, this transformative undertaking seamlessly doubled the size of

the building and, in the process, added a new basement classroom and cloakroom accessible by a rear staircase and formal confessionals in the rear of the chapel.

Prepared by Lyons & Mather, Architects, of Bridgeport, CT, the plans called for the addition of 12 rows of pews. The construction, by the Waterbury Construction Company, was estimated to cost $80,000, but in a letter to a fellow headmaster in July of 1960, Walter Sheehan reported the cost to have been $103,000. Of that sum, $52,000 was out on a note while alumni including Gerard C. Smith ’31 and his brother Gregory ’30 contributed the remainder. Their father, John Thomas Smith, had funded the construction of the original chapel, and in December of 1958.

The granite for the addition came from the same quarry in Roxbury, CT, that was used for the original

Originally designed for a school of 100 boys, the Chapel of Our Lady was expanded in 1960 to hold 250 congregants. Driven by Canterbury’s increased enrollment, this transformative undertaking seamlessly doubled the size of the building…

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chapel and the gym, and, in fact, all the granite building projects since: the athletic center, the William B. Higgins ’53 Aquatic Center, and the expansion and renovation of Steele Hall. The matching materials and the skill of the masons produced a seamless connection between the old and new portions, and all agreed that a visitor, seeing the chapel for the first time, would never know the two sections were built 32 years apart.

The moving of the great west window 60 feet to the west was executed with particular skill. Each portion of the stained glass was first photographed in color, so that the window was reassembled as a perfectly completed photographic jigsaw puzzle. The framework was moved into the new west wall, and the glass was easily and accurately set back into place.

The expanded Chapel of Our Lady was rededicated on October 21, 1960, by Archbishop of Hartford Henry J. O’Brien.

Canterbury’s Chaplain Regis Ryan, O.P. officiated at the High Mass that followed, assisted by four visiting priests, and accompanied by the Schola Cantorum. At the end of the Mass, Archbishop O’Brien gave a brief sermon and blessed the congregation.

The expanded chapel now was in need of seven new stained glass windows to unify the extension aesthetically with the original chapel space. Walter Sheehan relied on two alumni, John Kernan ’30 and Gregory Smith ’30, to shepherd the subject and design of the remaining windows. They had decided that the motif for the windows in the addition would be North American saints with memorialized episodes from their lives. In June of 1961, John Kernan wrote to Walter Sheehan that he and Gregory recommended the Lamb Studios of Tenafly, NJ, to make the new Canterbury windows. Established in New Jersey in 1857, J&R Lamb is the oldest continuously operated stained glass company in the United States. They have designed

The Elizabeth Seton window, donated in 1961 by Kevin Wait ’47, in memory of his twin brother Lt. H. Gregory Wait ’47.

The Men of Maryknoll window, the gift of Edward ’49, Michael ’51, John ’59, and Daniel ’63 Duffy.

and crafted more than 15,000 stained glass windows and restored more than 9,000.

Six of the seven Lamb windows are done in the French Medallion style of the 12th and 13th centuries to conform to the style of the D’Ascenzo windows. However, they are personalized with symbols and devices to recall the interests of the donors or of the persons in whose memory the windows are given.

The first Lamb window was installed during Christmas vacation in late 1961. It was donated by Kevin Wait ’47, in memory of his twin brother Lieutenant H. Gregory Wait, Jr. ’47. After graduating from Cornell in 1951, Gregory Wait joined the USAF. In January of 1952, he was diagnosed with cancer, and he died in August at the age of 22. Kevin Wait and his wife were present for the blessing of the window on January 21, 1962. The Wait window’s subject is Mother Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (1774-1821), founder of the Sisters of Charity in the United States.

In September of 1961, two other Canterbury families, the Duffys and the Murrays, committed to donating windows. The Murray window would be in memory of Joseph Murray who had died in September of that year.

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Immediately, John Kernan wrote to Sheehan with suggestions regarding possible subjects for these windows. In response, Sheehan wrote that the Duffys might be interested in a window dedicated to the Maryknoll Order despite the fact there would be no saints connected with the window, “inasmuch as the School has always been tied in closely with Maryknoll” and “the Duffys have a boy in the Maryknoll Order.” The Duffy brothers, Edward ’49, Michael ’51, John ’59, and Daniel ’63, did donate a window with the theme “Men of Maryknoll.” The window is in memory of their grandparents Edward J. and Lillian (Poole) Duffy. It depicts scenes from the history of the order such as Pope Pius X blessing the order’s founders Fr. James Walsh and Fr. Thomas Price, and Fr. Gerard Donovan, the first Maryknoll martyr who was killed at age 33 in 1937 while a missionary in China. This window is fitting for the Duffy family since Michael Duffy served as a Maryknoll priest for 35 years. Ordained in 1964, he was assigned to Maryknoll’s mission in Tanzania, East Africa, where he worked until 1974. In 1980 he was assigned to the Kenya Region and taught at the Apostles of Jesus Seminary in Nairobi for three years. He was reassigned to Kenya in 1993 for another three years. Those who attended Canterbury’s 75th Anniversary celebration would remember his evocative and engaging homily at that event. Fr. Duffy died in 1999. John Duffy served as President of Canterbury’s Board of Trustees for nine years.

The Martyrs of Canterbury window was donated by brothers Peter ’52, Timothy ’54, Christopher “Toby” ’56, Andrew ’59, and Wilford ’63 Smith. This stained glass window depicts the four Canterbury Martyrs: Christopher Buxton, Robert Wilcox, Robert Widmerpol, and Edward Campion. Beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929, these four men were executed for their Roman Catholic faith at Oaten Hill in Canterbury, England, on October 1, 1588.

The window just to the west of the main entrance venerates a man of outstanding importance in California’s history, Fray Junipero Serra, of the Order of Friars Minor, called the Franciscans. This window is in memory of John Thomas and Mary A. Smith, whose generosity built the original chapel. Fray Junipero dominates the upper panel with the mission church of San Carlos Borromeo at Carmel behind him. Small medallions above are those of San Juan de Capistrano and Santa Barbara. Below and to the right of the center Sun is the motto, Carpe Diem, of John Thomas Smith.

Mrs. Theresa Farrell Murray and her five daughters chose to commemorate Saint Isaac Jogues and Saint Jean de Breboeuf, of the Society of Jesus, in their donated window, the middle of the three on the south aisle of the chapel. The window memorializes Joseph B. Murray, father of Mrs. Frank Cavanagh, Mrs. James McDonnell, and Mrs. Buckley Byers, all of whom sent children to Canterbury: Frank Cavanagh, Jr. ’64, Marcia Cavanagh ’78, James McDonnell III ’67, Buckley M. Byers, Jr. ’60, Joseph Byers ’63, and Christopher Byers ’75. The upper two-thirds of the window features an enormous cross among which are several small medallions. Many of the symbols in this window suggest the work of Saint Jean and Saint Isaac among the Huron and Mohawk Indians. Other symbols represent Mr. Murray’s interests and history. These include the numeral XVI for his sixteen grandchildren; an A for his birthplace, Albany; and a lily for his patron saint.

The westernmost window on the south aisle of the chapel addition was donated by Brendan O’Connor ’63. It recalls the legendary seven-year voyage of Saint Brendan the Navigator in search of the Land of Promise.

The top part shows Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, the “Lily of the Mohawks,” being baptized. To emphasize the Indian aspect of the subject matter, native symbols appear in the border: a bare tree in winter, lightning, deer tracks, a pine tree, water, feathers, and additional symbols. An Irish harp in the left hand corner and shamrocks in the border suggest the land of Saint Brendan’s and the O’Connors’ origin.

The westernmost window on the north side, just above where the

The Martyrs of Canterbury window, the gift of Peter ’52, Timothy ’54, Toby Smith ’56, Andrew ’59, and Wilford ’63 Smith. It depicts four Canterbury Martyrs.

confessional was installed, is in memory of Nicholas Devereux (1791-1855). A financier and philanthropist of Utica, NY, Devereux was involved in the Utica Water Works, the Steam Woolen Mills of Utica, and the New York Life and Trust Company. He and his brother founded the Utica Savings Bank, and he founded St. Bonaventure University in Allegany, NY, on land he had donated. In a panel under his arms are listed five of his many benefactions.

Beneath this are the names of 41

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eight Devereux descendants who have graduated from Canterbury: John Devereux Kernan ’30, Charles O’Connor Sloane ’33, James F. Hunter, Jr. ’42, Anthony D. Hunter ’45, Richard H. Hunter ’47, Charles O’Connor Sloane III ’60, John Devereux Kernan, Jr. ’60, and Jeffrey B. Sloane ’62. In the border, to supply the chapel with its church mouse, is a woodmouse, which also recalls the mouse races which one of the descendants confessed to his father that he and his friends used to have in the corridors of Middle House.

By June of 1962, all seven new windows had been installed in the chapel addition, and John Kernan began a campaign to create a brochure of color photographs with accompanying text explaining the symbols and incidents depicted in each window. At first, Walter Sheehan said it would not be possible to proceed with such a booklet because of the cost. Kernan persisted, and by September, Frank Cavanagh, President of the Parents’ Association, became involved in raising money to fund the brochure project. Nearly a year later, in August of 1963, Kernan received the funds and permission to have the brochure, “Stained Glass at Canterbury, 1961-62,” printed and distributed to supporters of the chapel.

The expansion of the chapel stimulated adding other objects of liturgical art to grace the interior.

In 1960, John Kernan designed and made a sterling silver pyx, a container for altar breads, which he donated. The following January, he designed, made, and donated a goblet-like, gold-plated sterling silver chalice for use in the Chapel of Our Lady. The chalice is adorned with Canterbury’s motto Supercertari semel traditae sanctis fidei, and on the base of the chalice a cross within a circle is engraved.

In October of 1943, Nelson Hume wrote to Luis Mora’s widow May to thank her for the gift of Luis’s statuette of Saint Francis of Assisi which Mora had produced in 1936. Inspired by G.K. Chesterton’s biography of the saint, Mora

The Saint Isaac Jogues and Saint Jean de Breboeuf window donated by Mrs. Theresa Farrell Murray and her five daughters.

The Junipero Serra window. It was given in memory of John Thomas and Mary A Smith.

portrayed St. Francis as a man in a hurry, almost running, his face inspired and full of life. Although Hume originally placed it in the bay window of the reading room of the library, the bronze statue now stands in the chapel directly across from the main entrance.

Described in the October 14, 1943, Tabard as a “symphony of movement and grace,” the statue shows St. Francis clutching a crucifix to his heart while his other hand holds one of the birds he loved so well. Bounding along at his side are two graceful

young deer.

In the summer of 1961, Reed Armstrong ’55, a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, visited the School, and headmaster Walter Sheehan gave him his first commission: to create a statue of St. Jude the Apostle. It is from Jude 1:3 that Nelson Hume took the motto of the School: “To contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.” Following the tradition of showing a martyr with the instrument of his or death, Jude holds a club because he was beaten to death. Armstrong tried

Sheehan in the summer of 1962, and Sheehan sought Father Ryan’s opinion before he approved the sketches. The stations were finally shipped on September 8, 1964, from Spain, where Armstrong and his wife had taken up residence.

As Canterbury approached its 50th Anniversary in 1965, the enlarged chapel seated the entire student body. More important, the beauty of the building and its contents inspired students and visitors. As Nelson Hume wrote to Dorothy Badenhausen in March of 1942, “Everything that adds to the beauty of the Chapel increases its spiritual influence on the lives of the boys. It is a happy thing for us to realize that it is possible to appeal in this particularly fine way to the better side of their natures.

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to depict an older, prophetic, apostolic, gaunt, and ascetic Jude.

The three-foot Jude statue was not originally planned to be cast in bronze, but in October of 1961, Walter Sheehan suggested that John Kernan go to Armstrong’s Princeton, NJ, studio to see the statue. After Kernan saw it, he recommended strongly that it be cast in bronze. He also commented that it is “a very fine work, strong, simple, direct, forceful, reverent.”

The statue was sent to Italy for casting in bronze and arrived at Canterbury in the late spring of 1962.

As soon as Jude was installed in the chapel, discussion began about Armstrong creating Stations of the Cross for the chapel. Armstrong sent sketches of the Stations to

Saint Francis of Assisi statue by Luis Mora graces the Chapel Our Lady.

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Francis Luis Mora

The Saint Brendan and Saint Kateri Tekakwitha window was given by Brendan O’Connor ’63.

The Devereux window, given in memory of Nicholas Devereux, contains the names of eight Devereux descendants.

A close friend of Nelson Hume, Francis Luis Mora was the son of a Spanish sculptor of note, Domingo Mora.

Among the portraits Luis painted are ones of Andrew Carnegie; President Warren G. Harding, which hangs in the White House; and the young Rozanne Hume. Mora had a home in Gaylordsville, CT, and he and his wife had a warm relationship with May and Nelson Hume. In 1937, a Mora portrait of George Washington was placed in the entrance to the then Middle House, moved to the North House dining room, and then back in its original place in Sheehan House. Luis Mora died in June of 1940. With the publication of F. Luis Mora: America’s First Hispanic Master by Lynne Baron (2008), Mora has received renewed attention. Baron’s book includes a discussion of Luis’s association with the Humes and Canterbury.

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Reed Armstrong ’55

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Hamilton Reed Armstrong ’55 went to Georgetown from Canterbury, but he soon transferred to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts to study sculpture. Armstrong and his wife, painter Roxolana Luczakowsky Armstrong, spent 17 years in Malaga.

During their years in Spain, the Armstrongs became acquainted with the King and Queen of Spain; Reed executed a bust of King Carlos during that time. In 1988, Armstrong’s statue of St. Joseph was installed in front of Maguire Hall at Georgetown. A bust of Dag Hammarskjold by Armstrong stands in Zaire where Hammarskjold’s plane went down in 1961. Armstrong received the 2005 Humanitarian Award from the American Maritain Association. His work exists in numerous churches in Spain. Two of Armstrong’s sons, Andrew ’80 and Gregory ’81, are Canterbury graduates.

St. Jude statue by Reed Armstrong ’55.

Fr. Thomas Quinn and Fr. Regis Ryan, Canterbury Chaplains Although Canterbury did not have a resident chaplain until 1948, Father Joseph King, pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church in New Milford, served as chaplain for 18 years, 1921-1939. Fr. King sang the High Mass at Canterbury on November 13 for the memorial services in honor of Clarence H. Mackay. A month later, on December 13, he died in the church rectory. Upon Fr. King’s death, Rev. Walter Kenny was appointed chaplain by Bishop McAuliffe of Hartford.

On September 29, 1948, in the first Board of Trustees meeting held after Dr. Hume’s death and Walter Sheehan becoming the second headmaster, the Board passed a resolution that “the action of Mr. Sheehan in retaining a resident chaplain for the School… is in all respects ratified, approved and confirmed.”

Thus, the appointment of Canterbury’s first resident chaplain, Fr. Thomas Quinn, was approved. Fr. Quinn would serve the School in that capacity until 1958 when the Archbishop appointed him to a parish in New Britain where he later became principal of Saint Thomas Aquinas High School. During his tenure, Fr. Quinn taught religion and Latin, served as housemaster in North House, and coached some athletic teams as well as directing a stage production each year. The 1952 yearbook dedication to Fr. Quinn stated in part, “If we are able to leave the school having learned the smallest part of that which he has to teach, our stay here will be successful beyond all expectation.”

Two Maryknoll priests, Fr. Fox and Fr. McCabe, “pinch-hit” for a year, and Fr. Regis Ryan, O.P., was appointed in 1959 and served until 1965 when he was posted to LaSalle University in Philadelphia. In addition to teaching theology, Fr. Ryan served as a housemaster in Middle House. A tribute to him in the 1965 yearbook read, “Father’s vibrant interest in our well-being was more electric and responsive to our needs than our guitars… In the Chapel of Our Lady we discovered our essential goodness. We happened upon happiness. Father was the catalyst.”

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Fr. Thomas Quinn with students. He was Canterbury’s first resident chaplain, serving from 1948-1958.

Fr. Regis Ryan, O.P., Canterbury’s chaplain from 1959-1965.

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By Lou Mandler

The Student Body 1940-1965 What was the makeup of the student body and how did it change during Canterbury’s second quarter century?

Alumni sons in 1963-64. Front row, l-r: Peter Miller ’67, Brett Haire ’67, Dana Smith ’65, John Smyth ’65, Ben Halsey ’67. Second row, l-r: Craig Hamilton ’67, Bob O’Hara ’65, Bob D’Alton ’66, Peter Paul ’66. Third row, l-r: Sean Lane ’65, Chris Leydon ’67, Bill Kernan ’65. Fourth row, l-r: Martin Harrington ’65, Martin Curry ’64, Gerry Smith ’64, John Schenk ’65.

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anterbury’s second quarter century began in 1940 with just under 100 boys enrolled, and by 1965, the student body numbered more than 200. This article discusses the makeup of the student body during this time and how it changed over 25 years.

Some alumni are notable because of the number of family members who attended Canterbury; others are notable because of their accomplishments. As the decade of the ’40s commenced, World War II directly and tragically affected both the students at the School and the School’s alumni.

In 1944, Dr. Hume wrote to trustee Hubert McDonnell that of the 352 alumni, 203 were in the armed services. Files of Hume’s correspondence during the War years contain many letters from graduates in the service and from their parents. The parents of Bev Miller ’35 sent on to Nelson Hume a letter from Bev in which he said, “A man can’t put death and bullets and suffering on paper.” The chapel article in this issue mentions the agonizing wait the parents of Ed Scanlon ’42 endured between the report of Ed’s missing and that of his death. Hume brought these experiences to the boys by sometimes reading letters to them from alumni in the services. In February of 1943, he also wrote to Lieut. Paul Morrissey ’25 that the candles at the shrine of Our Lady are lit every night “because so many alumni are in the service and need our prayers.” The service flag of honor was still another way the sacrifices and contributions of the alumni were brought home to boys on campus. It commemorated all who had served and marked those who lost their lives with a gold star. It now hangs in Maguire Auditorium.

The boys at School were aware not only of what alumni were doing during the war, but in the early ’40s, they knew that they, too, were likely to be active participants. In January of 1944,

a special graduation was held so that Dominick Dunne, Clifford McCormick, Joseph Mora, and John Rumley could receive a diploma before they were inducted into the service. In April, Private Dunne of the 359th Field Artillery Battalion wrote a four-page letter to Dr. Hume from Military Reservation, PA. He reported that on Holy Thursday he was on a two-day bivouac during which “We crawled on our stomachs through about a foot of muck under the barbed wire while machine guns fired a constant stream of bullets about a foot over us.” In October, Nick’s father, Dr. Dunne, wrote to Nelson Hume and said that Nick “is very much thrilled over the fact that he has again been advanced and now directs firing for his battery.” A year later, Dr. Dunne sent a clipping with the headline, “Bronze Star Medal Awarded to Dunne.” In commending Nick’s award, Hume wrote to Dr. Dunne, “It pleases me particularly to know that Nick got his Bronze Star, not for killing, but for saving those men.”

In 1947, the School opened with 118 boys, and Hume continued to follow that part of the mission stated by some of the early trustees: to welcome boys from areas outside New England and New York. In June of 1947, Hume responded to Havemeyer’s questioning the enrollment of boys from Latin America by writing, “We would look a bit narrow if we did not take boys from foreign countries.”

He stated that Canterbury had begun taking boys from Latin America about ten years earlier, and he cited the qualifications of some of these students. He told Havemeyer that the father of young Pereyo ’49 was a federal court judge in Puerto Rico, that the father of Munoz ’50 was a lawyer in Guatemala, and that the Latin American boys were “all good students and fine gentlemen.”

As pointed out in the article on athletics, students from Venezuela were a boon to the soccer program in the 1950s.

Second headmaster Walter Sheehan increased enrollment by

In 1947, the School opened with 118 boys, and Hume continued to follow that part of the mission stated by some of the early trustees: to welcome boys from areas outside New England and New York. expanding the School’s facilities, a hallmark of his tenure. Two years into Sheehan’s headship in 1950, enrollment had increased to 137 and by 1960, it was 194. Keeping enrollment at capacity did not seem to be a problem in the ’50s. In July of 1953, Sheehan wrote, “We have reached that charmed circle where our enrollment is filled by the first of June, and we have a waiting list.” During Sheehan’s tenure, day students became part of the student body. In the fall of 1957, he reported that eleven students from New Milford were attending the School. Besides continuing to welcome boys from Cuba and other countries, Sheehan sought out and admitted the first African-American student, Lawrence Aaron ’65.

That the School’s student body drew from other countries and cultures worked against Canterbury being in a “bubble on the hill.” With its students affected by wars and politics, all students were more aware of national and world affairs. In November of 1961, Jorge Arguelles ’58 wrote to Walter Sheehan, “Thanks to God all my family was able to get out of Cuba in time… Last March I left school (college in New Orleans) to join my fellow countrymen in the fight against the atheist communist dictatorship which has subjugated the Cuban people. I was lucky enough not to go on the fatal invasion of April 15th, and so I give thanks to God for being here in school and not a prisoner in Cuba like most of my friends.” Arguelles goes on to say, “Since we had to leave everything behind, I was wondering if it would be possible for you to send me a graduation diploma.” Frank Molanphy ’59 and his family also fled Cuba as Castro took over the country.

A remarkable number of students of the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s became future Canterbury trustees. Given the fact that 52 graduates from these years eventually served as trustees, it is unrealistic to discuss all 52. A complete list of trustees can be found through a link on the Centennial website on Canterbury’s web. It must be mentioned here, however, that the Canterbury graduate from this period who has served the School the longest as a trustee is John O’Neill ’57 who has been on the Board since 1986; in 2016, he has served the School for 30 years. A close second is John (Jack) Burke, Jr. ’41, who was a Board member for 28 years. Also in the 20-year category are Donn Dolce ’63 (20 years),

Dominick Dunne ’44, Canterbury’s 1992 graduation speaker.

Anthony Edgeworth ’53.

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48

John O’Neill ’57.

Bill O’Connor ’57.

John Duffy ’59.

Denis Coleman ’63 (22 years), Tom Murray ’44 (21 years), and Gerard Smith ’64 (20 years).

Four Board Presidents emerged from this group of trustees beginning with Peter Kiernan ’40 who succeeded Donal McDonnell ’39 in 1974 and served until 1978. Vincent Largay ’49 became president after Kiernan, and John Duffy ’59 took the reins from Largay in 1983. Duffy was President for nine years, until 1992. The end of Duffy’s tenure was the beginning of the term of Canterbury’s first female Board President, Hope Carter, parent of six Canterbury graduates. In 1998, Bill O’Connor ’57 became president, an office he held until 2007.

While not a trustee himself, Charles Steers ’44 is the father of current Board President Robert Steers ’71. Another graduate of this period who made a future significant contribution to Canterbury is Ed Steele ’41 who donated the funds for the original and subsequent renovation of Steele Hall, named in memory of his son Robert ’72.

As had been true from the School’s inception, during these 25 years, Canterbury’s student body contained siblings from

several families who, in turn, sent their children to Canterbury.

John Thomas Smith’s sons Gerard ’31 and Gregory ’30 both sent their own sons: JT ’60, Gerard ’64, and Hugh ’72; and Gregory ’63 and Dana ’65. Hugh’s children Courtland ’01, Gerard (Chopper) ’04, and Margaret ’06; and Dana’s son Simon ’97 continued the tradition. Trustee Richard Joyce Smith sent his five sons: Peter ’53, Tim ’54, Chris (Toby) ’56, Andrew ’59, and Will ’63. The second generation of that Smith family to attend Canterbury were Patrick ’88 and Anika ’90. The four Wheelock boys; Joe and Web ’56, James ’61, and Tom ’65; attended during this time, and Joe and Web both later served the School as trustees.

Dorothy and Carl Badenhausen are mentioned in other articles in this issue for their generosity to the School. In addition, their three sons, Carl ’42, Robert ’46, and Dick ’55, graduated from Canterbury. Ed ’49, Mike ’51, and Dan ’63 were John Duffy’s ’59 three brothers. John’s two children, Hilary ’87 and Kevin ’91, followed John to Canterbury.

The first two Corroon brothers entered the School in the 1930s, and the last three brothers were

Perhaps the most well-known graduate of the classes from 1940 to 1965 is Dominick (Nick) Dunne ’44, author, journalist, movie producer, and television personality. at the School during the 1940s: Richard ’31, James ’37, Bob ’40, Larry ’42, and Hugh ’47. Bob’s son Robert, Jr. graduated in 1977.

Walter Briggs ’30 was the first of four generations to attend Canterbury. He sent his sons Walter, Jr. ’52, Basil ’54, and Jim ’56. The next generation were Walter III ’75 and Grace ’79 (Walter, Jr.’s), and the fourth generation were Walter IV ’04 and Aaron ’06 (Walter, III’s), and Cam ’12 and Katie ’15 Roffe (Jim’s grandchildren).

Members of the student body during this time also included the sons of well-known families.

Ernest Hemingway’s two sons, Patrick ’46 and Gregory ’49, were

active participants in athletics and activities. Johannes Von Trapp ’56, however, missed much school because he spent time touring with his family. Other alumni include author A.J. Cronin’s son Andrew Cronin ’56 and Perry Como’s son David ’63.

Perhaps the most well-known graduate of the classes from 1940 to 1965 is Dominick (Nick) Dunne ’44, author, journalist, movie producer, and television personality. He wrote several novels including The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1985) but gained most attention for his coverage in Vanity Fair of such trials as that of O. J. Simpson and the Menendez brothers. Dominick Dunne was Canterbury’s graduation speaker in 1992.

Anthony Edgeworth ’53 is an award-winning photographer whose images have appeared in such magazines as Esquire, Town & Country, Fortune, Travel & Leisure, New York Magazine, and The New York Times Magazine. He has produced seven large format books on various subjects; several focus on golf. Edgeworth’s work will be part of the Centennial Art Show in

April 2016.

After assisting Walter Sheehan in Canterbury’s 50th Anniversary celebration and fund-drive, Peter Cashman ’55 became involved in politics in 1970 as a member of the Connecticut Senate. In 1973, he became Lieutenant Governor to Governor Thomas Meskill.

Since leaving politics, Cashman has been involved in real estate and energy conservation projects.

Peter’s grandson John Calcagni is a member of the Class of 2016.

Writer, editor, and executive of non-profit organizations, Conn Nugent ’64 was the executive director of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War when it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. The non-profits he has directed have been primarily concerned with the environment, both nationally and internationally.

Conn is the student in the cover photograph of this issue.

Tom Gerety ’64 went on to become President of Trinity College in 1989 and then of Amherst College in 1994. Prior to this, he was a professor at the University of Cincinnati, the University of Pittsburgh, and Stanford Law

School. After leaving Amherst, Gerety became the executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. Tom was the keynote speaker at Canterbury’s 75th Anniversary Convocation in 1990.

Many Canterbury graduates of this period became very successful in the business world. Examples include David DeLorenzo ’64 who left as President of Dole Food Company to become head of Itochu Corporation, the Japanese company that bought Dole’s packaged foods unit. Robert Holmen, a trustee from 1982 to 1985 and father of Robert ’79, was the chairman of the U.S. division of Backer Spielvogel Bates, the advertising agency whose accounts included Miller Lite and Campbell Soup. There are numerous other business leaders I wish I could mention.

In the fall of 1965 as Canterbury celebrated its 50th Anniversary, the School had grown to more than 200 boys. In the next quarter century, it would continue to grow, and the student body would embrace a female population and continue to contain students from other countries and cultures.

Student Graduates: 1940-1965

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By Kathy Bolster

Student Life at Canterbury 1940-1965

As Canterbury’ second 25 years began, life on the hill remained fairly unchanged. But when the U.S. entered the War in Europe, the daily lives of Nelson Hume’s faculty and students were altered dramatically.

What did Hume do to lead the School during this crucial time? And, after Hume’s death in 1948, what did Walter Sheehan do to improve the lives of Canterbury students?

A

mid tea dances, Yale games, and retreats, Dr. Hume shepherded his young charges into the decade of the ’40s. Canterbury’s campus had grown to six buildings: North House, Middle House, South House, schoolhouse, chapel, and gym, all of which had been built during Nelson Hume’s years.

Enrollment in 1939-1940 was 98, including 13 sets of brothers.

As 1940-1941 began, life on the hill remained relatively unchanged with a rhythm to the days and to the seasons. Homecoming Day, held sometime in October, was an example of this: the program of the day included a buffet lunch, the football game vs. Wooster, and a tea dance, with classes cut short for boys to greet guests.

Beginning in 1940, the schedule of classes changed from six periods to eight. Hume was motivated to make the change because he had observed that the boys were not using their unstructured study time to its fullest advantage. The entire school went to study hall from 5-5:45 in the late afternoon plus another 45-minute session to be used as necessary. Students had only five periods on Saturdays, followed by lunch served at 1:00.

After lunch, the boys went to the three houses to listen to college games on the radio. Tea was served in the afternoon. Hume continued the tradition of teas in the Humes’ 50

North House residence, talks by visiting clergy, student retreats, and a nononsense code of discipline. Dr. Hume’s system of rewarding the boys for good work continued, as he announced at breakfast one Sunday morning that an extra day had been added to the Christmas vacation in recognition of the school average of 70.62 for the second marking period. During this year, a Craft Guild opened in the lower quarters of the schoolhouse wing.

Projects included ship model building and carpentry courses.

Nelson Hume created a special schedule for exam week in late January of 1941. No motion picture was shown on the weekend, and Sunday was devoted to review. Seven exams took place over a five-day period.

Dr. Hume granted the boys an extra half-hour of sleep before the 8:00 breakfast which was followed by chapel. Exams began at 9:00, lunch at 1:00. For relaxation between exams, the boys played the Chinese game of Fan-Tan (a gambling game played with groups of small objects), hands of bridge, or they staged battles with wooden ship models. Cards, chess, and checkers were also popular.

In May, the boys had an extra study hall from 2:15-3:30 between the end of athletics and the beginning of finals and College Boards.

Teachers who wished to take boys from the study hall for extra review could do so in three slots of 25-minute periods. Dr. Hume granted downtown permissions from 3:30 onwards. The gym and pool were also open. The regular afternoon study hall started a little later (5:15-6:00), followed by chapel, which included choir practice in preparation for the Graduation Mass.

The Quarterly was already coming to an end in 1938. The Quarterly originally had the more secure financial position, but student tastes were leaning to the news format of The Tabard and the two publications shared many of the same staff members. The Graduation Number of the 1941 Tabard contained an extra section, captioned “The Canterbury Quarterly.”

This was the obituary notice of The Quarterly. Without competition from The Quarterly, The Tabard increased its cash through ad sales.

Canterbury adopted a regulation school blazer in 1941, created by Brooks Brothers in a deep blue with silver buttons at cuff and breast. The left breast pocket displayed the School seal, and on a guidon (a pennant pointed or forked at the free end) beneath the seal, the School motto.

Hume allowed Sixth Formers to wear the embroidered numerals of their graduating class above the seal.

Perhaps what added most to the air of luxury at Canterbury in 1940– 1941 was the Filipino staff. Their number had grown along with the enrollment so that the boys were always well attended. One Filipino worker attended each table in the dining hall, and a head waiter, named Ernesto, stayed close to Dr. Hume’s table. Their duties went beyond the

The Rifle Club of 1941-42. Frank Fisher (coach), McHugh, Rowland, Scanlon (captain), R. Cudahy, Kelly, J. Couzens.

dining room. Boys could leave their shoes outside their doors to find them in the morning polished and shined by the Filipinos during the night.

Even in the fall of 1941, however, the impending war cast its shadow over Canterbury life. In order to meet restrictions mandated by national defense, new cloth book bags replaced the older canvas bags. Canvas and woolen goods used in football pants and jerseys became difficult to obtain. Other materials, such as casters for beds and some lab materials, became cost-prohibitive. By December of 1941, for the second time in its history, the School began to operate on a wartime basis. Every boy was required to enroll in at least one extra activity that would develop his practical skills and prepare him intellectually for the war. These extra courses were Morse Code and rifle practice (Mr. Fisher); military mathematics (Mr. Lindman); radio maintenance (Mr. Koenig); automobile maintenance (Mr. Maloney); first aid and map making (Mr. Fisher); and finally, an expansion of the Camera Club to study war photography (Mr. Koenig). By 1943, textbooks, particularly Muzzey’s American History, became difficult to purchase. The school schedule remained the same except for the addition of daily calisthenics and the previously mentioned special war courses. At the War Department’s request, Doctor Hume placed emphasis on basic instruction and obedience over military training.

The School began to feel the pinch of rationing in the dining hall during the autumn prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, when shipments of supplies had been seriously delayed or items substituted. The food rationing matched that of the First World War. Sugar was the first food to be rationed, so Canterbury laid in stores of corn syrup and honey for cornbread. Miss Powers, Dr. Hume’s secretary and Canterbury’s registrar, was in charge of issuing ration books for 80 members of the 51

community (faculty, staff, and all boys age 18 or over). Three acres of school property were cultivated for potatoes and cared for by a work squad, yielding 160 bushels the following year. Additional restrictions were placed on gasoline and paper. Squads of boys organized to collect paper from the dormitories for government use. As late as 1947, the School felt the effects of food rationing.

To compensate for the continued rationing of wheat, butter, milk and sugar, Canterbury adopted the following schedule: no meat on Tuesdays, on Thursdays no poultry or eggs, and milk limited to two glasses per meal.

By all accounts, Canterbury did well with rationing, and the boys continued to do their extra labor duties with a determined purpose and good cheer. The School’s program continued to include sports contests (although reduced in number), the viewing of weekly movies, retreats, and most of the usual activities.

By the spring of 1942, many of the Filipino waitstaff were being drafted. With the staff of the School cut down to a bare minimum, the students took up the slack in various other areas of school life.

Students waited on tables for the first time. When the time came for room-care and dining-room duties, each boy had to take his turn, and no social stigma was attached to these tasks.

The Tabard, with editor Stephen Hume ’43, ceased its 25 years of weekly publication in 1942 and became a bimonthly, a move made for economic reasons and to conserve paper for the war effort.

Delays in publication occurred due to the loss of the Linotype man, who had joined the Navy late in 1942.

The first wartime blackout experienced by the School as part of a state-wide exercise occurred on March 1, 1942. Middle House was the first to be in complete darkness, taking only one minute and 56 seconds. The entire School was dark within four minutes and fifty-five seconds, while Dr. Hume 52

commanded his staff from his position just outside his front door.

The clap of his hands could call a boy to attention from anywhere within the quad, whether at night or in broad daylight. During the blackout, one boy underestimated the headmaster’s ability to control the quad, and while the boys were waiting for the all-clear signal, he began threatening Dr. Hume in his best Japanese/American accent. The threat was short-lived. Dr. Hume summoned the impersonator to his office by name and warned any other would-be offenders by a single clap of his hands.

By the fall of 1943, the School’s 108 students were fully accustomed to the wartime routine. Each boy’s room received a broom and dust pan and floor cloths, and every morning after breakfast, but before classes, the boys cleaned their own rooms. A February 1945 item in the “Gleams & Glooms” section of The Tabard discussed the importance of polishing shoes to maintain them. The purchase of shoes had been rationed since 1943; the limit was three pairs in 1943, but decreased to two pairs in 1944.

A World War II poster proclaimed, “Use it up - Wear it out - Make it do!”

One by-product of the emergency was the competition within the work squad, made up of boys not involved in a regular sport. After the demise of Old Geyser, Canterbury’s service vehicle of many years, Dr. Hume purchased a sawed-off two-ton truck as its replacement. The head of the work squad had the only keys to the truck, and thus was courted by students and teachers alike for his services. When gas rationing curtailed vehicle use on campus, driving the truck or riding in it became the status symbol of privilege on campus. Fifth and Sixth Formers were responsible for keeping the coal-fired furnaces stoked during the evening.

This created a certain basement camaraderie, a break from the study hall routine, and an opportunity for a most welcomed cigarette.

On Saturday, January 9, 1943, Canterbury felt the nearness of the War with the departure of Edward Dawes, Jr., the first boy to go into the Army. This first Canterbury recruit was a member of the Fifth Form. He was followed by Tony Cudahy ’43, who enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Cudahy was allowed to finish Canterbury before serving.

“The Tabard” staff of 1944-45. Front row, l-r: D. Hume, Kerrigan (editor), G. Seeley. Back row, l-r: Merrill, Horan, Shanley, Hemingway.

The size of the study hall ultimately limited the School’s capacity in 1944. The addition of 41 new boys swelled the enrollment to a record 111, too many boys to fit comfortably in the small study hall.

Before the year was out, however, eight had left to serve in the armed forces. The Second Form, which had had a declining enrollment, was a victim of the pressure of the War. Since the death of Alec Hume in 1935, there had been no one to whom Nelson Hume felt he could hand over that part of the School.

Consequently, the First Form had been dropped shortly after Alec’s death, and only the Second Form had continued, with some interruption, as a remnant of the old School. The Tabard reported Dr. Hume as saying, “The Second Form has been dropped from the ranks to ‘make room for more mature boys.’”

Canterbury was not exempt from war’s tragedies, as had been the case in 1917-1918, when the School had fewer students. The Tabard printed news of alumni missing in action or taken prisoner.

Eleven boys gave their lives during World War II, and this came home

Canterbury was not exempt from war’s tragedies, as had been the case in 1917–1918, when the School had fewer students. The Tabard printed news of alumni missing in action or taken prisoner. poignantly to Mr. Brodie, Mr. Maloney, Mr. Lindman, and Mr. Mack, who kept seeing the boys’ “shining morning faces” before them as each name was uttered and prayed for in the chapel. On Thursday, April 22, 1943, a flag, the gift from the Class of 1943, for all graduates of Canterbury in the services was hung in the chapel. The flag arrived on campus with 140 blue stars, and one gold star. By placing additional stars between the rows, the flag could accommodate another 100 stars.

The first gold star was for Captain

The Senior Council of 1951. L-r: Morrisey, Smith, Toole, McLaughlin, Dorment, Walsh, Tormey.

Jack Miller ’31, killed in action.

To accommodate students who were going off to war, Hume held a mid-year graduation in 1944.

Father Walter F. Kenny, pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church in New Milford, celebrated High Mass in the morning, and Father Edward J. Sullivan, S.J., Prefect of Discipline at Boston College, preached the graduation sermon.

The actual graduation ceremony took place in the study hall, when Dr. Hume, after a fitting address to the graduates and entire School, presented diplomas to Dominick Dunne, Clifford McCormick, Joseph Mora, and John Rumely. Dominick Dunne later received a Bronze Star for his actions in rescuing two wounded men in Felsberg, Germany, at the age of 18. Two boys, James Couzens and George Hamilton, graduated mid-year in 1945 after completing a program of acceleration during the summer.

The Tabard notes that Charles Kipp also left early for the Army Air Force.

During the War, all Sixth Formers were assigned to classes in mathematics and physics. These two classes, combined with the required English and American History, precluded Sixth Form language studies. After the War, those intending to pursue liberal studies in college could now omit fourth-year math and continue language studies in Latin, French or Spanish. About one-third of the students went to scientific and technical schools; they would continue math and physics.

The College Board examinations also changed after the War. The old essay tests were dropped in favor of scholastic aptitude and achievement tests. This change came almost simultaneously with the revision of college entrance requirements. The mounting number of applications presented the schools and colleges with new pressures after the War. In 1946, as Patrick Hemingway prepared to apply to colleges, his father Ernest advised him that because Princeton and Harvard were being “inundated” with veterans, Patrick 53

The Senior Council of 1962. Front row, l-r: Foley, Sheehan, Friel (chairman), McLachlan, Shea. Back row, l-r: O’Donnell, Leydon, Murphy, Hutchison.

The 1959 cast of “Seagulls Over Sorento.” First row, l-r: Mullins, Stevens, Carroll, R., Murphy, D. Second row, l-r: Baker, J., Flannery, Phillips, Sanders, Sessions, Maloney, W., Molanphy. Third row, l-r: Sinnott, Leydon, J., Cagney, Coyle.

should apply elsewhere.

Yearbook publication resumed in 1946, but Dr. Hume stressed that the yearbook could not act as a substitute for the graduation issue of The Tabard; however by Volume 47 (1949-1950) of The Tabard, the Graduation Issue had been replaced by the Cantuarian.

Shortly before the graduation day of 1948, Dr. Hume fell ill and took to his bed. Over the next several days, his condition did not improve, and he died on June 14, 1948, having worked to the end of his life to foster the 54

growth of Canterbury School. In the 33 years from 1915 to 1948, he had expended every effort to make Canterbury a School of excellent academics imbued with Catholic teaching. Dr. Hume had also taken great care with the architecture and design of the campus and its buildings.

School opened on September 16, 1948, with an enrollment of 124 boys and Canterbury’s second Headmaster, Walter F. Sheehan.

Sheehan made some immediate changes in school life. He abolished the carrot-or-the-stick approach of extra days of vacation for exemplary behavior, but he did not substitute any special system of discipline in its place; boys were simply expected to behave.

Misbehavior resulted in a loss of privileges, such as curtailment or deprivation of a weekend or vacation days. Sheehan did away with the custom of permitting the boys to go downtown for an hour on specified days of the week and afternoon tea. Instead of tea, the school store opened after athletic practices for students to purchase candy or cigarettes. After evening study hall ended at 9:30, students could purchase milk and cookies, and the funds raised were used to purchase athletic uniforms. Some athletic teas and tea dances still occurred, so losing the custom of daily tea did not elicit a reaction from the students.

Although the system of discipline changed, many aspects of student life remained the same. Tea dances continued with girls from Westover, Noroton, and Marymount Academy of Tarrytown. Canterbury still hosted trips to Yale/Princeton games. In 1952, Yale sent 32 tickets to Canterbury for the game. The captains and managers of the fall sports attended these games; other student attendees depended on their scholastic standing.

One unchanging practice was that boys had to walk downtown to have their yearbook photographs taken at Simpson’s Studio, then located at Bridge and Main Streets.

According to Jean Hebert, during Mr. Sheehan’s early tenure, one

The Canterbury Chess Team. Front, l-r: Raymond Marcotte ’54, Phil Faix ’54. Back row, l-r: Per Skjold ’54, Ed Lindman, Ed Hammond ’54, James Corridon ’54.

of the boys was returning from his photo session when a boy from town made a remark. The Canterbury boy backed the offender into the ash cans in front of Slone’s Pharmacy on the corner of Main and Bank Streets and dropped him with one blow. The boy wasn’t even back to the top of the hill before Mr. Sheehan knew of the incident and suspended all further permission for boys to go downtown.

After Father Quinn arrived on campus in 1948, he brought the world of the theater to Canterbury.

Each year he directed a stage production, beginning with a play called Room Service. Over the next few years, the students used the St. Francis School auditorium where they successively staged Ten Little Indians, Arsenic and Old Lace, and Stalag 17, among other plays. Fr. Quinn once experimented with using the old New Milford Town Hall, which had a stage and equipment dating back to the 1870s. In these fusty surroundings, the Mimers, the dramatic organization, executed an acclaimed production of The Ghost Train.

In 1951, Mr. Sheehan revived the idea of the Student Council, begun as a Sixth Form group, composed of the four sacristans, three elected Sixth Formers and other boys appointed by Walter.

Representatives from the Fifth and Fourth Forms were included later.

With the rapid expansion of the student body, 156 by 1951, and the difficulties of providing for sufficient supervision, Mr. Sheehan found it necessary to extend authority to the student body. First, he introduced the proctor system to assist the faculty masters in the dorms; the proctor idea was further enlarged to include four committees of proctors that would have charge of the dining room, the gymnasium, the chapel, and the schoolhouse.

When boys began to live offcampus, Mr. Sheehan appointed an additional proctor to supervise them. By 1958, so that the entire control of discipline should not be in the hands of the students, a discipline committee consisting of Jim Moore, assistant headmaster, and two additional faculty appointees acted as a supreme court in exercising jurisdiction over all disciplinary questions.

Many schools, including Canterbury, considered the problem of honesty versus cheating in the classroom as a disciplinary rather than a moral issue. This feeling led to the adoption, in 1956, of an honor system, first for the Sixth Form on a trial basis, followed by the Fourth Form, and eventually adopted by all Forms in 1957.

Policing of classroom integrity became the direct concern of the students themselves. In this system, the members of the Student Council were the first recipients of complaints or accusations. They worked to resolve the matter and then presented it to the faculty for a final decision.

In physical appearance, The Tabard of October 5, 1950, presented a new format of five columns instead of four, an increased number of photographs and illustrations, and bolder headlines. Advertisements in the ’50s Tabards came primarily from local businesses such as Young’s Hotel, Mario Garcia Tuxedo rentals, Hipp’s Ice Cream and Candies, and Carter’s Inn in Litchfield. W.H. Brine, Athletic Outfitters, from Boston, a company owned by the family of William ’48 and Peter ’60 Brine, was an exception to this. A larger Canterbury School provided more news of diversified activities, so the editors kept athletics off the front page. Without Nelson Hume’s strict overseeing of the paper, students exercised more freedom over the content and form of the publication.

Each issue of The Tabard generally contained two editorials, one concerning the Canterbury community and one on current events. In 1953, one of these editorials centered on continuing amateurism in athletics. “The Tri-State League has remained completely amateur…[i]f in this league any team were to import a player of outstanding prowess, it would immediately be frowned upon. School spirit and rivalry would diminish, for what interest would the students show if all the players of one team or several were at their respective schools 55

The Choral Club of 1953-54. First row, l-r: Duffy, Smith, M., Speno, Dunne. Second row, l-r: Corcoran, Krug, Mr. Mack, McGrath, Sklold, Third row, l-r: Dietz, Coudert, Hunsicker, Goodall. Fourth row, l-r: Ubbelodhe, Barnett, Howard, Finn. Back row, l-r: Hessel, Smith, T., Mack, Corridon.

on scholarships?… [d]e-emphasis of sports in colleges and prep schools would greatly increase the intellectual status of our country, for who can study and be an All-American at the same time?”

The world outside was changing too. In 1952, an anonymous benefactor donated a television set to be located in the Middle House Common Room with a schedule for viewing programs worked out by the headmaster and Senior Council. Along with entertainers Jackie Gleason and Dinah Shore, CBS Television News and The Today Show brought current news into the common room. Tabard articles were written on the pros and cons of jazz or rock’n’roll. Co-editor Howard Junker ’57 wrote an editorial in 1956 comparing Elvis Presley with Mickey Mantle as Jekyll and Hyde characters. He concluded that Presley belonged to the school of “switchblade, sideburns, and smirks.” In another editorial, he wrote of the dangers of communism and “follow the herd” mentality. The harsh suppression of the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 and the Suez Crisis in the same year seemed to confirm student fears. The Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik in 1957, the first earth satellite, added to the unease. Fidel Castro, politically a Marxist-Leninist, came to power in 1959.

As editorials in 1958 increasingly addressed the communist threat, they also pointed to a need for expanding Canterbury’s science offerings.

Students generally only took two years of science; chemistry and physics were the offerings. A general science course had been discontinued several years previously, but no biology was offered. About 1955, since the trend in all schools then was toward “honors” courses, Mr. Sheehan introduced them in English, history, and foreign languages. No honors sections existed in science. The math department had introduced the 56

“new” mathematics shortly after its general introduction into the public schools.

Mrs. Isabelle Reilly, wife of faculty member Gene Reilly, introduced art as a hands-on activity at this time The program was offered as an extracurricular activity, and students met once per week in the basement of the infirmary during evening study hall on Fridays. Art, however, did not become part of the curriculum until the 1970s. Other activities enjoying popularity on campus included the chess, photography, choral, and stamp clubs.

The chess club, led by Mr. Lindman, earned coverage in Chess Review in 1953 and 1954 by winning the Gambit League Championship three years in a row. According to the April 1953 article in Chess Review, Lindman had organized the Gambit League and hoped to eventually create a prep school national championship competition.

Both headmasters had been in favor of the boys in the School taking part in High Mass on the occasions when it was sung. Ed Mack founded the Choral Club in 1930 and directed it into the 1950s.

It became one of the major extracurricular activities, comprising 50 members in 1951-52. Even after he retired, Mr. Mack was accompanist for the Club. In 1954, Mrs. Hugh Campbell (Eleanor von Trapp) initiated a program to teach a smaller group the basics of Gregorian Chant. This group functioned as the choir and became known as Schola Cantorum. After two years, Dick Griffin took charge of the Choir, until 1959 when Jean Hebert became director. Jean served into the 1960s with Gerry Vanasse acting as accompanist.

A new literary magazine called The Carillon started appearing three times per year by the early 1950s.

The Carillon differed from The Quarterly in appearance, format, and other physical features. The binding was modest and there was no formal table of contents on the cover, yet it served as a creative outlet for Canterbury’s students.

Polio struck Canterbury in the fall of 1954, affecting several Canterbury boys. The Sixth Formers held an all-night vigil in chapel.

The School was quarantined, and Sheehan sent the boys home for two weeks; the entire student body received gamma globulin injections.

Thanksgiving vacation was forfeited that year and several Saturdays were added to make up the days missed.

Besides chapel and religious instruction, the annual retreat was part of the Canterbury religious experience. This observance dates from the first days of the School. As enrollment expanded, Mr. Sheehan felt that a more personal experience would result from smaller groups, and so the two Upper Forms began journeying to one of the many religious retreat houses in New England: the Sixth Form to one, the Fifth Form to another. The two Lower Forms held their retreat on campus.

During the 1950s, three committees were formed: Chapel (to maintain order and silence in the chapel and to help with the recital of prayers); Dance (arranged tea dances, invited guests to school, arranged dates, furnished refreshments, and hired the band, including the graduation dance); and the Ring Committee (only two members).

The 1960s were a time of social unrest, protest, and fear in the outside world. This was the time of lunch counter sit-ins and riots for Civil Rights, demonstrations decrying the increased involvement in Vietnam; and, in 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, The Tabard regularly featured reports of the war in Vietnam and contained editorials reflecting both sides of the United States’ involvement. In 1963, the assassination of President Kennedy rocked the world.

With the decade of the ’60s came a new academic schedule.

Class periods decreased from seven periods per day to six, four before and two after lunch. Classes were lengthened to 52 minutes. On

…Dick Griffin took charge of the Choir, until 1959 when Jean Hebert became director.

Wednesday, an extra period was added after lunch for mandatory help for students in the Lower Forms and public speaking for Fifth Formers.

Sheehan was well connected in the world outside Canterbury and believed in bringing speakers to his School on the hill to benefit the boys. Several political luminaries appeared on campus during the 1960s. In the fall of 1963, through connections of Marian Frelinghuysen, mother of Henry Seherr-Thoss ’65, Walter Sheehan planned a South American seminar for Saturday, November 23. Guests were scheduled to be Charles Bartlett, Pulitzer Prize journalist and friend of President Kennedy; The Hon. Fernando Berckemeyer of the Peruvian Embassy; and William Warner of the National Press Club.

The death of President Kennedy on November 22 prevented the seminar from occurring. However, Charles and Mrs. Bartlett journeyed to Canterbury later in 1964, and Bartlett spoke to Canterbury boys on the transition from President Kennedy to President Johnson. Besides his journalistic success, Bartlett is known for introducing Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy.

Other letters in Canterbury’s archives reveal that Mrs. Frelinghuysen, through Malcolm Forbes, procured the New York City Chief of Detectives, Chief Lawrence McKearney, to speak at Canterbury in April of 1964. The archive copy of the letter from Forbes to McKearney states, “Mrs. Frelinghuysen, the School and I are most grateful that you are willing to do this favor, and I know you will find a most appreciative audience.”

Through the good graces of Mr. and Mrs. William R. Hearst, Jr., parents of William R. Hearst III ’67 and Austin Hearst ’71, the student body had the opportunity to question one of the truly dynamic men of the day, William F. Buckley. There was also a Tabard interview with Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller in 1966.

Similar to service trips offered today, in 1962, Canterbury sponsored the first of several trips to Mexico. Eight students volunteered for six weeks to build six school rooms. The host families’ homes had no running water, no telephone, and sporadic electricity.

Catholic lay missionaries organized this program at Yale, in cooperation with Maryknoll priests, and allowed secondary schools to participate.

The smoking room changed from South House (Carter) basement to the Middle House (Sheehan) common room in 1963. By 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General had published a report linking cigarettes and poor health, but students were allowed to smoke on Canterbury’s campus through the ’80s.

The first Tabard of the 1965 school year headlined the 50th Anniversary of Canterbury, which was kicked off with Homecoming festivities on October 16. More than 200 alumni, parents, and friends returned for the ceremonies. A special edition of the paper published on April 26, 1966, was entitled “Canterbury Holds Fiftieth Anniversary Three Day Symposium.”

And so, on Canterbury’s 50th birthday, we leave a school no longer as isolated from the world as in the first 25 years. By 1965, with more than five million color TVs in the U.S., news spread faster and with a more visceral impact.

The 1965 Watts race riots, the escalation of the Vietnam War, the continuing Cold War threat, and the assassination of Malcolm X all contributed to a growing unease, while freer styles in fashion (the miniskirt), music (The Beatles), and film (Psycho) shook long-held traditions at Canterbury.

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By Lou Mandler

Athletics at Canterbury 1940-1965

Headmasters Hume and Sheehan firmly that athletics was an important component of a boy’s education. How did they build the athletic program to assure that all boys participated in a physical activity?

I

n 1944, headmaster Nelson Hume wrote a two-page letter to Henry Havemeyer, part of which discussed the state of athletics at Canterbury.

After extolling the successes of the four levels of football teams, he expressed what could be taken as his philosophy about athletics: “I mention these facts about the teams because they are outward evidence of the fine spirit in the school, and success in athletics reacts on the general tone of the school, even to the extent of stimulating the boys to work harder in their lessons.”

In 1940, the sports available to Canterbury boys continued to be football in the fall; swimming, basketball, and hockey in the winter; and baseball, track, and tennis in the spring. On October 7, 1949, the first soccer game in Canterbury’s history was played at Taft. Soccer became a fall varsity sport the next year. Track was discontinued during the War years but reinstated in the spring of 1947 under Mr. Brodie. In the spring of 1955, an informal golf team was revived by Fr. Quinn for the first time since pre-war days.

The following year, it was added to the spring sports schedule, but it lapsed again until the spring of 1963 when Mr. Gerald Vanasse instituted a golf team. In the spring

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After a victorious win, the 1953 football team hoists their coach Roger DesRoches.

of 1964, it became a varsity sport, and for the first time, Canterbury had four varsity sports options for boys in one season.

World War II affected athletics in several ways. Without modern day mini-buses, transportation to away games was a challenge even in 1940. In the fall of that years, the School took players and spectators from Canterbury to the Gunnery football game in individual cars

driven by Messrs Herlihy, Doyle, Lindman, Mack, Brodie, Maloney, Dr. Hume, and parent Mrs. A.S. Clark. Recent grad Barry Ryan ’37 from Wesleyan helped out as well.

In February of 1943, The Tabard announced that “Gasoline and tire rationing are threatening to cut down all sports events this winter, especially away games with other schools, but some train connections can be made.”

…retaining teaching and coaching faculty during World War II was a challenge. Dr. Hume acquired George Stirnweiss as a coach, because football coach Joseph Thesing went to the armed forces in 1942.

Trains did indeed make away games possible. In April of 1943, the baseball team took the train to Woodrow Station (South Kent) and walked from the station to their game at South Kent. The May Salisbury game was played at 11:00 in the morning at Canterbury so that the Salisbury squad could make the trains between New Milford and Canaan. The following fall, “Canterbury entrained en masse for Kent on November 20 to witness the pigskin classic that afternoon. Boys left after second period on the 10:30 train to Kent.

All boys and the team returned at 3:30 on the train.”

As noted in the article on faculty in this issue, retaining teaching and coaching faculty during World War II was a challenge. Dr. Hume acquired George Stirnweiss as a coach, because football coach Joseph Thesing went to the armed forces in 1942. The draft during the Korean War also affected Canterbury’s coaching staff. During Christmas vacation of 1950-51, soccer and hockey coach Austin Kilbourne was drafted.

Illness, too, took its toll on athletic teams. The winter athletic awards in 1952 were not presented until April 6 because of a measles and mumps outbreak. In the fall of 1957, The Tabard reported that half of the soccer team was missing because of the flu for the October 30th game against Hopkins which Canterbury lost (1-0). However, the most deadly encounter with sickness was the polio epidemic of 1954. Football played only

Canterbury boys install drainage pipes for the new baseball field. Their work helped to realize a plan to expand facilities for a growing student body.

three games that fall and cancelled four after three Canterbury boys contracted polio. Ken Scassera ’57 recovered to return to Canterbury and become the junior rep on the Student Council and editor-in-chief of the Cantuarian, but Sixth Former Dick Higgins ’55 was physically affected for the rest of his life. Despite this, he became a respected history professor at Assumption College. Shortly after Higgins was stricken, The Tabard commented on “big end Higgins”: “Speedy Higgins stands six foot four inches tall and was the best end in the league.”

Today, Canterbury’s athletes are recognized at the end of each season in an all school meeting, and top awards are given at an athletic dinner in May. The genesis of such celebratory dinners may be the dinner at the local Tally Ho restaurant in December of 1943 hosted by Dave McCormick’s ’44 father, John, after the football record of only one defeat (to Salisbury). By the fall of 1948, an annual banquet had been established to recognize football athletes. When soccer became a fall varsity sport, soccer teams were also included. The dinner was held in November, usually the week before boys departed for Thanksgiving vacation. The head coach spoke briefly and gave the captain his letter. The captain, in turn, gave letters to fellow teammates. This practice of the captain presenting the letters continued into the ’60s. The banquets also featured guest speakers, prominent professional or college sports figures. At the 1948 dinner, umpire Ed Hurley spoke about his experiences with such greats as Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. Other speakers included Len Watters, Williams College football coach; Jack Lavalle, “foremost football scout in the nation” for the New York Giants; and Nick Katys, Yale’s backfield coach. Robert Geigengack, parent of Bob ’56 and Yale track coach who also coached the 1964 Olympic track team to a gold medal, spoke at three dinners.

Fall homecomings had been established as a tradition early in the School’s history, and they continued to feature a home football game.

These October events continued throughout the War years although in 1943, the School did not have enough ration points to serve lunch, so guests brought their own. The 250 guests for the 1944 homecoming traveled mostly by train because of gasoline rationing. In 1953, 59

The Tabard proclaimed that the largest crowd ever, 650, attended homecoming, but this was surpassed in 1956 when it was said that 800 watched the game and 600 were served at lunch. The 1955 homecoming was marred by rain and flooding to the extent that some parents were stranded on their way home.

In 2015, the School holds both a fall and spring Parents’ Weekend in addition to a Homecoming Day. It wasn’t until 1956 that Canterbury held its first Spring Day to draw parents to campus and scheduled academic conferences were not part of the program.

The three significant improvements to athletic facilities between 1940 and 1965 were the artificial ice rink north of the gym and the track, football, soccer, and baseball fields created by removing the apple orchard north of the gym and the construction of an addition to the gymnasium.

From 1940 through 1942, the football team did not have successful seasons. In fact, The Tabard reported that the 1941 homecoming game against Wooster (25-0) was the “most crushing defeat in over fifteen years.” However, there was a reason to cheer despite the next year’s homecoming loss to Salisbury when an article in The Tabard stated, “Tony Cudahy ’43 played such a magnificent game that many ‘old timers’ judged that he is the greatest of all Canterbury’s football greats…” Cudahy was a standout in other sports as well, and in the fall of 2015, he was inducted into the inaugural class of Canterbury’s Hall of Fame.

Headmaster Hume made a significant coaching hire for football and basketball in the fall of 1942. He engaged George Stirnweiss, a former halfback on the UNC Chapel Hill team, future American League batting champion, and two-time all-star. Canterbury’s archives contain a number

The Varsity Basketball team of 1942-43. Front row, l-r: Treacy (captain), FitzGerald (captain), Kipp. Back row, l-r: Mr. George Stirnweiss (coach), Blakey, O’Brien, C. McCormick, Ford (manager).

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of letters between Hume and Stirnweiss as they negotiate the nature of Stirnweiss’s involvement with Canterbury teams. Stirnweiss’s letters are often written on hotel stationery: from Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, or Washington, D.C. In August of 1943, Hume wrote to Stirnweiss, “Of course, you will probably be playing baseball until after the World Series, so that we will have to begin football practice without you.” That September, Stirnweiss requested not to do “house duty.” It seems this was granted but that some study hall duty was part of the arrangement; the following fall, Hume assured his star coach, “I believe that this year I can confine whatever work you would do to coaching.”

Under his tutelage, the “Stirnweissmen” turned out three years of successful seasons. In the fall of 1943, the football team experienced only one defeat, and the team’s victory against Kent resulted in the following exulting paragraph in a letter to Hubert McDonnell from Nelson Hume: “Kent is a school of 300 boys.

We played them some twenty-six years ago, in 1917, when we were young and were beaten 97-0. We evened things up on Saturday. We took on their big team and beat them 39-6. Canterbury has one of the best football teams among the private schools in Connecticut…”

In the fall of 1944, Canterbury “vanquished Gunnery 68-0,” and the season’s total of 174 points to the opponents’ 34 was a record.

Stirnweiss also worked with the junior football team which was undefeated in the fall of 1945 with a 5-0 record. A member of that

In the fall of 1949, Ernesto Mendoza ’50 brought his soccer skills from Venezuela to Canterbury by organizing the first soccer team in Canterbury’s history.

Throughout this time, hockey received the most ink in The Tabard with swimming coming in second and basketball a distant third. However, before 1951, much of the attention focused on hockey was about poor ice conditions because of weather, little practice time, and cancelled games.

team was Ernst Hemingway’s son Patrick ’46.

In the fall of 1946, the new football coach was Michael Hearn, former star fullback at Fordham and player for the Burlington Tigers, and a semi-pro baseball player.

The records of the next seasons did not garner as much ink in The Tabard as did the performance of the Berry brothers, Pete and Boo (Bernard), both of the Class of 1948. Outstanding football players, Pete was also captain of baseball and Boo of hockey. In the 1947 game against Berkshire, “Boo Berry electrified the crowd by romping around the end, after failing to find a receiver free, to score and deadlock the game.” In a later game against Wooster in pouring rain, “Canterbury fans were again brought to their feet in the first half when Boo Berry trudged 18 yards to his 47 to register the home team’s longest run of the day.” The following fall, Charlie Coudert ’49, future Canterbury trustee of many years, was captain of football. A key player a couple years later was another future trustee, Dick Dillon ’51. The Tabard’s profile of Dick went beyond describing his versatile athleticism to say,” Dick has acquired more aliases than a

The Varsity Hockey team of 1948-49. Front row, l-r: Blake, Reilly, Durcan, Berry B., (captain), Whitman, Duffy, O’Leary. Back row, l-r: Igoe (manager), Owens (manager), Kundtz, Landry, Coudert, Mr. John Weadock.

Post Office poster” in his four years at Canterbury.

The next streak of successful football seasons occurred under the auspices of coach Roger DesRoches who coached the team from the 1952 through the 1963 season. Football was undefeated in 1956, 1958, and 1960; in the three years of 1956-1958, they lost only one game. In 1958, Suffield and Hopkins Grammar were added to the schedule to toughen the competition. The Tabard commented that year that football “… has dominated every team it has played in the last ten years except Suffield with whom it has a 1-1 record.” The paper further commented that this was accomplished by a school with fewer than 200 boys; the journalists credited DesRoches with the accomplishment.

DesRoches also had excellent material with which to work. Of note was Lee Comfort ’64. In the fall of 1961, The Tabard stated regarding Comfort that “… no prep school in the state (had a player that) could surpass the amazing skills of sophomore left halfback.”

Comfort had 13 touchdowns and four extra points that season. A couple years later, in discussing the T-P game, the paper reported, “Lee Comfort closed out his brilliant and dynamic varsity career by scoring two touchdowns and

three extra points.” In the fall of 1964, Comfort was playing varsity football at Williams College, and his brother Dana ’65 was termed “perhaps the finest halfback since Lee” and “an electrifying runner.”

Lee was inducted into Canterbury’s inaugural class of the Hall of Fame in October 2015.

J.V. Football was also experiencing a winning streak of 16 wins during these years. It was undefeated for both the 1962 and 1963 seasons.

In the fall of 1949, Ernesto Mendoza ’50 brought his soccer skills from Venezuela to Canterbury by organizing the first soccer team in Canterbury’s history. The team played three games–with Taft, T-P, and Gunnery–and lost all three.

However, the players, with a core of experienced South American boys, were part of a varsity soccer team the following year. Captain Luis Rodriquez ’51 and team members Jose Obregon ’52, Manuel Pereyo ’52, and Francesco Said ’52 formed the team’s nucleus. The team had six scheduled games: Taft, Hotchkiss, and Berkshire seconds; and T-P, Gunnery, and Kent varsity but won only one game. Not until the fall of 1953 did the soccer team have a winning season when their record was 5-1-1.

Coach Patrick Walsh from Ireland replaced Mr. Kilbourne who was drafted into the 61

Under his tutelage, the “Stirnweissmen” turned out three years of successful seasons. In the fall of 1943, the football team experienced only one defeat, and the team’s victory against Kent resulted in the following exulting paragraph in a letter to Hubert McDonnell from Nelson Hume: “Kent is a school of 300 boys. We played them some twenty-six years ago, in 1917, when we were young and were beaten 97-0. We evened things up on Saturday. We took on their big team and beat them 39-6.”

military in 1952, and with Henry Thielen ’53 and Patrick McGinness ’53 as captains, the team beat Deerfield (2-1) on the Middle House field at homecoming on October 18. The Thielen brothers were crucial components of the early ’50s teams. Henry was the high scorer in the fall of 1951; in choosing him as the Athlete of the Month, The Tabard commented that he has “given many a goalie quite a headache because of tricky dribbling and all around scrappiness.” In the fall of 1954, Jorge Thielen ’55 scored 10 of the season’s 15 goals, and in the fall of 1955 Jorge’s brother Oscar ’57 led the team in scoring. Oscar and 62

Alfredo ’57 Thielen were co-captains of the 1956 team.

In taking the long view of Canterbury’s soccer teams, there are no long streaks of winning seasons during this period although both the 1953 and the 1954 team lost only one game. The loss for the 1954 team was after the “polio recess.” The first undefeated soccer season was in 1958 with headmaster Walter Sheehan and Jean Hebert as coaches. The next few years were again losing seasons. In the early ’60s, soccer received a shot of energy and talent with the addition of team members Joe Byers ’63 and Steven Krichels ’64. The Tabard called Krichels “one of the best all-around soccer players Canterbury has seen in a number of years.” Steven went on to become a starter on Middlebury’s soccer team in 1964, and that same year Joe Byers was a lead scorer of varsity soccer at Allegheny College.

In the early 1940s, a ski team was formed, and members Noah Timmins, Charles Reeves ’41, Jack Burke ’41, and Dick Botsford participated in a meet at Salisbury where they took fourth place.

Skiing did not become a permanent sport at Canterbury, although in 1954, four students participated in the Connecticut State Junior Ski Championship.

Throughout this time, hockey received the most ink in The Tabard with swimming coming in second and basketball a distant third. However, before 1951, much of the attention focused on hockey was about poor ice conditions because of weather, little practice time, and cancelled games. Until the first artificial rink was obtained from the Bleachery downtown in 1951, Canterbury teams sometimes used the farm pond off Route 202, skated on the rink south of the gym when it was usable, and, in 1944, reconditioned the rink behind South House for the first time in 14 years. None of these generally yielded enough practice time or games for satisfactory seasons. In the winter of 1941, The Tabard reported “It has been five years since puckmen have had a real coat on this rink.” The team played only four games that season.

The following summer of 1941, a drought brought the water in the farm pond down so that the bottom could be flattened and the surface area increased to 220 X 95, regulation being 200 X 85. However, that year there were only eleven days of practice, and at the start of the season there was no coach. Captain Tony Cudahy led the team in soccer drills to develop wind and strong legs. The season record was 0-4.

Superimposed on a photograph of the razed apple orchard, north of the gym, is an artist’s conception of the layout of new athletics fields. The project began in 1954; the baseball diamond was used for the first time in the 1956 season.

The Varsity Soccer team of 1951. First row, l-r: McGinnis, Thielen, H., Said (captain), Thielen, J., Guider. Second row, l-r: Mr. Walsh (coach), Drapeau, Smith, P., McLaughlin, Asman, Mr. Hebert (coach). Third row, l-r: Lobo, Pereyo, Walsh, Obregon, Osborns, Rovira.

In the winter of 1943, despite the efforts of “the immortal Tony Cudahy,” the team lost their one game, and alternating heavy snow and thaws prevented practice ice. A break in the losing streak occurred in 1944 when the team won all four games, only for the next two years to be marked with little practice time and few victories.

In the winter of 1947, nine games were scheduled but only three played. As Boo Berry received accolades for his football playing at this time, so he did for his hockey playing. The 4-2-0 record of the 1948 team occurred under captain Berry, “…whose agility and speed have won much acclaim for him, is a born hockey player.” He played both defense and forward. In 1949,

hockey again had a successful season under the captaincy of high scorer Ed Duffy ’49.

When the artificial rink was installed north of the gym in the 1950-1951 school year, there was cause for optimism about the hockey program. On February 6, 1951, The Tabard announced “More practices have been held so far this year than in the last two years combined.”

In the next 15 years, the combination of good ice, good coaching, and talented players created many successful seasons.

Former hockey goalie for Boston College, coach Peter Maggio, was given credit in The Tabard for the 6-3-1 record of 1954. Maggio was succeeded by Walter Bieman,

who had played with the New Haven Tomahawks, and who coached Blue teams to records of 9-2, 10-5-1, and 11-2-1. In 1957, the team lost the league championship by one goal. They were the first hockey team in Canterbury’s history to win more than ten games in a season. Those were also the years of goalie Tim O’Connor ’55 whom The Tabard termed “the finest goalie ever turned out by Canterbury.”

In the early 1960s, with Bieman’s departure, Roger DesRoches took on coaching hockey in addition to football, and John Coffin assumed the role when DesRoches left in 1964. The “talented players” component of these successful teams were primarily athletes with 63

The Varsity Hockey team of 1965. First row, l-r: Coneys, Gilbane, T., Meserole, Gilbane, W. (captain), Ewing, Weeks, Cooke.

Second row, l-r: Munkenbeck, (manager), Murphy, Haley, Stearns, McDonnell, Gilbane, R., Tucker, McBride, Constantine, Meyer, (manager), Mr. Coffin (coach).

the name Gilbane. In a summary of the 1964 season, The Tabard reported the “most prominent aspect of the season was the spectacular hockey playing of the three Gilbanes: Bill ’65, Tom ’65, and Bob ’67.” Tom Gilbane, in a featured Athlete of the Month article, was said to have an “exciting brand of hockey which features blistering slap shots and deft passing.” In the Kent game that year, with 17 Gilbanes looking on, captain Bill had four goals and two assists in the victory. An opposing coach commented about Bill, “… the only way you can stop that boy is lock him in the locker room.” Bill Gilbane was inducted into the first class of Canterbury’s Hall of Fame in October 2015.

The success of the J.V. Hockey team during this time must be mentioned. By 1965, the team had earned eleven league championships, and they had not had a losing season in 17 years. All this was accomplished with Jean Hebert as coach.

That Canterbury boasted a swimming pool before many of their rival schools undoubtedly set the swimming program on a positive course. Throughout the 64

’40s, ’50s, and early ’60s, under coaches Brodie, Fisher, and D’Alton, the “Blue Mermen” had successful seasons more often than not.

One of the first mentions of the swimming team in 1941 and 1942 is a reference to Tony Cudahy, also of football and hockey note. Tony is cited as the reason the team won the 1941 NYMA meet, and he is called the “anchorman” of swimming in 1942. Captains during these two years were Larry Corroon ’42 and Dick Tietje ’43. Phil Brodie consistently coached a winning team until his last season in 1956. A notable “Brodieman” was Peter Eigo ’52, part of the 1951-52 squad of 45 boys, the largest ever.

Eigo was an All-American prep school diver who was elected to the Interscholastic All-American Swimming Team. In 1954, the team record was 6-1.

Another standout individual swimmer was Tom Kennedy, the 1956 captain who broke several Canterbury and pool records and was named to the Prep School All-American team.

Canterbury’s swimmers won the Connecticut School Swimming Association Championship in 1958-59, 1959-60, and 1964-65 with coach Bill D’Alton. The team came in second in 1961 and 1964.

As mentioned in the previous PALLIUM, in the early years of the School, basketball was not the favored sport. This image changed with the arrival of George Stirnweiss as the coach of the 1944 team. Stirnweiss “developed a squad superior to any heretofore seen at Canterbury,” and the team ended the season with an 8-2 record. The following year, his junior basketball team was undefeated (5-0), and the varsity team’s record was 9-2. Stirnweiss’s successor, Michael Hearn, also led successful teams, and the team was enhanced in 1948 by the talent of Pete Berry who scored 204 points for the season. Although the following season, 1948-49, was a “disastrous” one with eleven losses, The Tabard noted the addition of glass backboards and said that Canterbury was the first school in the league to have them.

Basketball had an uneven record throughout the 1950s but had a notable year in 1954-55 when they “even beat Gunnery for the first time in 14 games” and ended the season with a 10-6 record. In 1960-61, they were second in league standings, helped by the talents of Lee Comfort,

The Varsity Swim team of 1957-58. Front row, l-r: Rowley, Smith, J. T., Birkenstock, Tredennick (captain), Kelly, Reed, Zielinski. Second row, l-r: Mr. D’Alton (coach), Townsend, Smith, R., Fallon, Dolce, Sinnott, Weis, Theis. Third row, l-r: Robinson, C. (manager), Smith, J., Heekin, Smith, A. Raymond, Clemens, Griffin (manager).

Mr. Brodie, who coached just about every Canterbury sport possible during his tenure, was the coach of, according to The Tabard, “probably the longest and most sensational game played by any Blue team” up to 1944. In a junior baseball game that year against the Danbury Indians, Canterbury won by one run in 13 innings.

Kevin Sheehan, Paul Fasulo, and Malcolm McLaughlin, all of the Class of ’62, and followed this up with a 12-5 record in 1961-62.

Before track could be reinstated after World War II, the track itself needed to be reconditioned. It was repaired by the team and the work squad under Mr. Brodie’s supervision and with the assistance of a threeton power roller to spread the cinders. The first meet since the war was in 1947 at Taft with Taft and Gunnery. The track teams eked out winning seasons for the next seven years. In the spring of 1955, the team suffered from the loss of Dick Higgins, who had contracted polio the previous fall and who held the high jump record and was one of the best broad jumpers in the league. Nevertheless, they ended the season with a 3-2 record. Under new coach Robert Jones in the spring of 1957, the team earned a 5-1 record, helped by Jay McCabe’s ’57 76 points. From then on, until 1965, track teams rarely lost more than two meets a season. In the spring of 1964, soccer captain Steve Krichels also captained the track team and earned praise in The Tabard: “[his] all-around versatility probably ranks him as the finest track athlete in the league… [he] is rarely outpaced or outjumped in any speed, height, or distance contest.” The paper also noted that the “cindermen relied heavily upon the sprinting of Harry Seherr-Thoss ’65, high point man…”

Mr. Brodie, who coached just about every Canterbury sport possible during his tenure, was the coach of, according to The Tabard, “probably the longest and most sensational game played by any Blue team” up to 1944. In a junior baseball game that year against the Danbury Indians, Canterbury won by one run in 13 innings. Fourth Former Pete McCanles, who had never pitched before, hurled the ball for 12/13 innings, striking out 21. The final score was 5-4, and the team ended the season undefeated.

During the ’40s, the junior baseball was more successful than the varsity team. In 1946, they placed second in the league with an 8-2 record, and in 1948, coached by Frank Fisher, they tied Kent for the championship of the Housatonic League; the following year they won the league title.

In 1946, the varsity team benefited from the pitching of Benedict Landry ’46 who, in a game against Hopkins, “twirled a sensational one

hitter.” The team ended that year with a 7-2 record. In 1951-52, the Connatonic League was formed in baseball with Westminster, Canterbury, Salisbury, Berkshire, and South Kent as members.

Canterbury won the Connatonic League the following year and came in second in 1954.

A front page headline in The Tabard announced a new baseball field for the 1956 season, established on the land of the former orchard. In this year, Canterbury’s 7-4 record gave them a three-way tie for first in the Connatonic League, and in 1964, The Tabard reported that the team had won the Connatonic League Championship twice in three years. Canterbury athletes who contributed to these winning seasons included pitchers Jack Heffernan ’58 in 1957, Kevin Sheehan in 1961 and 1962, and Lou Buck ’66 in 1965 and 1966. In 1961, Kevin Sheehan’s ERA was .162 for 55 innings. He went on to pitch for Williams College. The Tabard said of Lou Buck in 1965 that this portsider was “Mr. Briggs’s answer to Sandy Koufax” and that he was “easily one of the league’s best pitchers.” Lou also went on to 65

The Varsity Track team of 1964. First row, l-r: Largay, Ranger, Durkin, Simmons, Krichels, Rafuse, McCormick, Turecamo. Second row, l-r: Cummings. Seherr-Thoss, O’Neill, Curry, Nugent, McCarthy, Taradash, Torres. Third row, l-r: Foley, Kernan, McGuire, Smith, Corroon, Dailey, DiFillipo.

The Varsity Baseball team of 1965. Front row, l-r: Foley, M., Mahoney, Halleran, Piper (captain), Smith, D., Daly, W. H., Buck. Second row, l-r: Kirby, Sutro, Fox, Gilbane, W, Beaulac, Hulton, Costello, Meyer, Daly, N. Third row, l-r: Mr. Briggs ’56 (coach), Haley, Johnson, Sheehan, McNamara, Doyle, Stearns, Berrill, Ewing, Mr. Shea (coach).

pitch for Williams. Lee Comfort was cited for making several spectacular catches during the 1961 season, and in the 1964 season, Tony Eben’s ’64 batting average was into the .400s.

Jim Briggs ’56 arrived on campus in the fall of 1960 to teach history and coach. Baseball was his forte, and Lou Buck counts Briggs as “undoubtedly the best coach I have ever had.” Lou includes his years at Williams. According to Lou, Briggs possessed an unrivaled ability to teach the fundamentals of the sport, he led by example to model humility in victory and pride in defeat, and he had a contagious love and enthusiasm for the game.

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After five years on Canterbury’s faculty, Jim moved on to work at his alma mater, Williams College.

He has been a Canterbury trustee since 1993.

Because tennis is a spring sport, both the Cantuarians and the end-of-year Tabards went to press before the tennis season was well underway so historical accounts of tennis seasons are scanty. Tennis began Canterbury’s second quarter century with an undefeated record of 5-0. Before the end of the decade, the team had three more undefeated seasons and throughout the 1950s, were successful more often than not under the

enthusiastic guidance of long-term coach Jules Viau.

The history of golf as a sport was a short one by 1965. Despite the intense interest in the sport in the School’s early years, it did not become a varsity sport until the spring of 1964. Fr. Quinn formed an informal team in 1955 after a lapse of several years. In the spring of 1956, Mark Stuart’s four handicap was reported in The Tabard, but the team lapsed again until 1963 when Gerry Vanasse organized seven boys into a team. When golf became a varsity sport the following spring, it enabled Tom Gilbane to win four varsity letters in one year, participating in both track and golf that spring. Terry McBride ’66 was the #1 player that year.

From 1940 to 1965, Nelson Hume and Walter Sheehan saw athletics as an important component of a boy’s education. Hume was especially fond of football and hockey, but he saw physical activity in general as an enhancement of academics. Walter Sheehan had been a prep school and college athlete, and he remained involved and committed to sports.

Besides sprinkling his speech and letters with sports metaphors, he coached soccer, basketball, and baseball when the need arose. During Sheehan’s tenure, the construction of the Alumni Memorial Gymnasium gave the basketball program a “real” court, the acquisition of an artificial ice rink, and the creation of the track and the football, soccer, baseball fields made sports available to all boys as the enrollment increased.

The faculty during this time were expected to coach three seasons with the result that the likes of Phil Brodie, Joe Maloney, Jean Hebert, Bill D’Alton ’42, Jim Breene, Jules Viau, Jim Shea, and Roger DesRoches became “experts” in several sports.

As Canterbury moved into its next 50 years, larger enrollments, which would eventually include girls, would demand more coaches and expanded and renovated facilities.

According to Lou [Buck], [Jim] Briggs possessed an unrivaled ability to teach the fundamentals of the sport, he led by example to model humility in victory and pride in defeat, and he had a contagious love and enthusiasm for the game. After five years on Canterbury’s faculty, Jim moved on to work at his alma mater, Williams College. He has been a Canterbury trustee since 1993.

George Stirnweiss

Roger DesRoches

George Stirnweiss demonstrated his athletic potential as a student at Fordham Prep in the Bronx, where he starred in baseball, basketball, and football.

At UNC Chapel Hill, he played both football and baseball. Stirnweiss was a high draft pick by the Chicago Cardinals of the NFL in 1940 but instead pursued a career in baseball with the Yankees. After serving in the minor leagues for the 1941 and 1942 seasons, he was called up for the 1943 season after some MLB players were called into the service. From the fall of 1943 through the fall of 1945, Stirnweiss coached Canterbury boys during the off season. While on the road in August of 1944, he wrote to Nelson Hume, “I have seen quite a few of the boys during the season.” In 1944, Stirnweiss was the Yankee lead-off hitter. He won the American League batting crown in 1945. In 1947, he joined the St. Louis Browns and ended his career with the Cleveland Indians in 1952 after which he managed several teams including the Schenectady Blue Jays. After he left baseball in 1955, he entered the business world. On September 15, 1958, Stirnweiss boarded a train in New Jersey headed into Manhattan. The train drove through a restricted zone, fell off the Newark Bay lift bridge and into the Bay, killing him and 47 additional passengers. He was 39 years old and left his wife and six children. Stirnweiss’s brother Andrew was a long-term resident of Kent, CT.

As a linesman on the Holy Cross football team, Roger DesRoches earned honorable mention for the All-American team in his senior year.

After earning his Master’s in Biology from the University of Massachusetts, he joined the Canterbury faculty in 1949. In the years that he coached football at Canterbury, the team slipped below .500 only one season (1951). During the winter season, he coached basketball until he took on the hockey team in 1959. The Tabard reported that his teams “definitely exhibited that intangible élan which so characterized all of his teams. That spirit, a DesRoches phenomena, has united all those who have played under him. His manner was always that of a virile friendliness.” The 1955 Cantuarian dedication to DesRoches states in part, “His ability as a coach is unquestioned, but even those who have not been under his tutelage know of the love he has for his work and his desire for our success–this from a man who is himself a success–a man whose friendship and generosity we will always remember.” In speaking of Roger DesRoches recently, Dick Dillon ’51 commented, “He was an extraordinary guy who had a profound influence on me. He always had a big smile, but he was also demanding. His practices were so tough that we could hardly wait for game day, which was like a day off.” To illustrate Roger’s physical size, Dick said that the boys could get their feet into DesRoches’s shoes while wearing their own shoes. DesRoches’s last year on Canterbury’s faculty was 1963-64.

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Canterbury Kicks Off Capital Campaign

Photos by Marc Vanasse ’73 and John Vicchiola

The Canterbury Moment: The Time is Now, The Day is Here

Trustee John O’Neill ’57 and Tom Sheehy.

At the end of the evening, confetti rains down on guests.

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Trustee Dorothy Alpert ’78 and husband Morrey Halfon.

Barry Bourne ’49 and sister Juliet Bourne Sherwood

Renata Gagnon Kennedy ’00 and husband John ’00.

Patricia Sordoni Rasmussen ’97 and husband Erik.

President of the Board of Trusteed Bob Steers ’71 greets guests and announces the new capital campaign: The Canterbury Moment.

Trustee John ’59 and Dana Donovan.

Faculty members Chris and Sue Roberts.

Trustee Jim ’56 and Mary Lou Briggs.

Robert and Dorothy Rotolo.

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Marie and faculty member Peter Cotier ’86.

Eric ’89 and Lindsey O’Neill.

Members of the Class of 1978. Peter Tucker, Steve Reynolds, Dorothy Alpert, Michael Burke.

Thomas Hammer ’92 and Jennifer Patt.

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Trustee Emeritus Donn ’63 and Nora Dolce.

Trustee Nick ’88 and Joelle Ragland.

Lexie Routh ’06 and Patrick Deveau.

Tom Sheehy, Molly Sheehy Reilly ’98, Betsy Sheehy.

Current parents Antonio Capanna, Janine Capanna, Elaine Cox, Kevin Cox.

Lauren Steers received recognition for her many contributions to Canterbury.

Greg Coleman ’72, Jack Ryan ’71, Steve Coleman ’71, Bob Steers ’71.

Nolly Portillo Pastore ’96 and Joseph Pastore.

Faculty member Kim Tester and John ’59 and Anne Duffy.

Past parent Sharon Stacey dances with Dan Truffini ’99.

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Trustee Tom Morris ’85 and wife Katherine, trustee Nicole D’Amour Schneider ’93 and husband Todd.

Carlton Tucker ’73 and brother Peter ’78.

Steers family. Andrew, JP ’11, Nancy and Bill ’75, Bob ’71 and Lauren, Charlie ’69, Macy ’04 and Jaime, Walker ’09.

Faculty member Frank Bice ’77 offers a blessing before the meal.

Ted Casey, Tom Sheehy, trustee Karen Becker Casey ’91, trustee Doug Famigletti ’90.

Former faculty member Peter Bordonaro and Scott Kelly ’74.

Guy Simonelli and Doug Bergner ’10.

Matt Dwyer ’71 and Katy Bordonaro.

Faculty member Julio Omaña, left, with current parents Ivan and Anabel Baquerizo.

John Bolster, Kathy Bolster JP Mandler, Lou Mandler, Wright Danenbarger, Mayia Mileva.

Current parents Laurie and Scott Sommer on the dance floor.

Peter Forster ’09, Ronald Forster, Jennie Forster, Katie Forster Randle ’05, Griffin Randle.

Kim Muirhead ’09, Will Finn ’07,and Kyle Ekstrom ’07 on the dance floor.

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Melissa and Matt Glaser ’81 (faculty member), Cindy Spatola Blakely ’83.

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JP Steers ’11, Freddy Hernandez ’10, Richard Straub 10.

Trustee Ted Hollander ’82, Laurie Hollander, Trustee Emeritus Bill O’Connor ’57.

John O’Neill ’57, center, was honored for his 30 years of service as a trustee of the School. He is flanked by Bob Steers ’71 and Tom Sheehy.

Past parents Marc Chiffert and Victoria Kahn.

Current parents Vlad and Carol Papov, Tom Sheehy, Besty Sheehy.

Bob and Lauren Steers on the dance floor.

Faculty member Matt Mulhern ’95, Patricia Sordoni Rasmussen ’92, Brett Ozarowski ’95.

Trustees Mike Carretta ’71 and Karen Becker Casey ’91.

Marc Chiffert, Mike Kelley ’82.

Bob Steers ’71, Lauren Steers, Betsy Sheehy, Tom Sheehy.

Vicky Omeltchenko ’79 and trustee Nell Lennon Williams ’81

Faculty members Peter LaVigne and wife Tracy Garcia-LaVigne with Allyson Mard and husband Ken ’99.

Doug Bergner ’10 and grandmother Hope Carter, Trustee Emeritus[.

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CANTERBURY SCHOOL

Society of Alumni

The Society of Alumni Pays Tribute to Tom and Betsy Sheehy

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Headmaster Tom Sheehy addresses guests at the January 29 event. He will retire at the end of June 2016.

President of the Society of Alumni, Peter Tucker ’78, updates guests about the Society’s aims and goals.

Jamer Breene ’74, Roger Cooke ’66, Molly Breene (Jamer’s daughter), Linus Cooke ’74.

Faculty member JP Mandler, 2012 classmates Sean Owens and Joe Najm.

Will Finn ’07, Tom Sheehy, Lexie Routh ’06.

L-r: Betsy Sheehy, Meg Power-Iapicco ’92, Patricia Sordoni Rasmussen ’92, Eileen Cullen Langer ’92, Sheila Mebus Fox ’92, Tiffany French ’94.

Chris Weber ’04, Bill Meara ’97, Michaela LeBlanc.

Trustee Karen Becker Casey ’91 and Macy Steers ’04.

2008 classmates Anna Roux, Briana Berg, and Kaley Gibson.

1978 classmates Denise O’Connor and Michael Burke.

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Blake-Gavin Buna ’11 and Richard Straub ’10.

Peter Forster ’09, Keeshia Laus ’10, Joe Cimaglia ’10, Holly Fraser ’10.

Anderson Navarrete ’00, Renata Gagnon Kennedy ’00, John Kennedy ’00, Austin Farmer ’02.

Faculty member Lou Mandler, Joe Najm ’12, Sean Owens ’12, faculty member Leigh Getz ’11.

1992 classmates Meg Power-Iapicco and Tom Hammer.

Tiffany French ’94, Nafisah McKenzie ’96, Brent Ozarowski ’95, Nolly Portillo Pastore ’96, Yadilis Lewis ’96.

Sarah Levy ’15, Rich Rodeschini ’09, Rose Skarzenski ’14.

Faculty member Leigh Getz ’11, Sarah Sokol ’11, Samantha Pucci ’11, faculty member Aleka Woods ’08.

Sisters Denise O’Connor ’79, Sharon O’Connor Berger ’83, Sheila O’Connor Kuhn ’76.

Lauren Granchelli ’10, Victoria Morini ’10, Betsy Sheehy, Tannaz Sedghi ’10.

1977 classmates Joanna Martiska Woodworth and Elaine Mullen Peer.

William Bergner ’09, Darien Cruté ’06, Taylor Kaiser ’09.

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1978 classmates Peter Tucker, Ellyn Shannon, Patty Gallagher, Michael Burke.

T.C. Burke ’77, Bill Meara ’97, George Malhame ’74.

Willis Stephens ’08, Taylor Kaiser ’09, Al Forsyth ’08.

Macy Steers ’04, faculty member Sue Roberts, Cory Turner ’04.

Ellyn Shannon ’78 talks to Jack McGrath ’50.

Garvin Hammer ’85 and wife Meg.

2004 classmates Sarah Powers, Cory Turner, Chris Weber, Macy Steers ’04.

ALL PHOTOS BY MARC VANASSE ’73

Brian O’Brien ’78, Denise O’Connor ’79, Michael Burke ’78.

Brian O’Hara ’04, Sandra Maradiaga, Austin Farmer ’02, Kaitlyn Culhane, Kelly McMurray ’04.

Lexie ’06 and brother JC Routh ’07.

Society of Alumni Executive Committee Peter J. Tucker ’78, President Victoria E. Bundonis Rovin ’81, Vice President John B. Gaffney ’90, Secretary

CSociety ANTERBURY of SCHOOL

Alumni

William R. Finn ’07 Renata D. Kennedy ’00 George E. Malhame ’74 Robert B. Maloney ’95 William F. Meara III ’97 John M. Niles ’68

Richard J. Owens ’82 Nolly Y. Pastore ’96 Patricia S. Rasmussen ’92 William M. Steers Jr. ’04 James R. Briggs ’56, ex-officio 81

Roy Fugazy ’78 and Michael Burke ’78 at Pope Francis’s visit to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

COURTESY TOM SHEEHY

COURTESY MICHAEL BURK E ’78

CLASSNOTES

Katie Wu ’17, Betsy Sheehy, Tom Sheehy, Aaron Kan ’16, Glenn Schwitter (Director of Advancement), and Pei Li ’16 at the Great Wall of China in March 2016.

Lawrence Aaron ’65 Speaks to Student Body

Top, Larry Aaron ’65 speaks to the Canterbury community at the school meeting of February 25. Below, Larry converses with Mohammed Zakyi ’17.

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MARC VANASSE ’73 (2)

Lawrence (Larry) Aaron ’65, spoke at morning meeting on Thursday, February 25, as part of Canterbury’s celebration of Black History Month.

Larry is the first African-American student to attend Canterbury.

Larry spoke about his professional career in news and journalism.

He wrote an op-ed page column three times a week for many years at The Record in Bergen County, NJ. He began as an editor at The Record after similar positions at Gannett newspapers in Rockland and Westchester counties, and St. Thomas, V.I. He was also a reporter in radio and TV in Colorado, South Carolina, and Florida. Larry has taught college journalism courses, and volunteered as an ESL teacher in New Jersey.

Born and raised in New York City, Larry earned degrees in history and journalism from Columbia University.

Correction

COURTESY JEFFREY NAGLE ’84

PALLIUM misstated Tony Hume’s ’71 relationship to Nelson and Raphael Hume in Vol. 32, No. 1. Nelson is his great-uncle, and Raphael is his grandfather.

Brendan W. Nagle, son of Jeffrey C. Nagle, Esq. ’84 and nephew of John A. Nagle Jr. ’83, won the gold medal in the 8 and under 25-yard butterfly and the silver medal in the 8 and under 50-yard butterfly at the Connecticut YMCA League Championships swim meet held at Canterbury’s Higgins Aquatic Center on February 7, 2016.

Former Chaplain Fr. Clement Greenan, O.P., Dies Fr. Clement Greenan, O.P., Canterbury’s chaplain from 19651976, died peacefully on February 21, 2016, in Simpson’s Hospital in Ballinteer, Ireland.

He was 98 years old.

Beloved by legions of Canterbury students, Fr. Greenan also taught theology, and lived in Sheehan House, where he was always available to the students as a sympathetic listener. Fr. Greenan returned to his native Ireland at the conclusion of his Canterbury tenure. A plaque given by the Class of 1974 was dedicated to Fr. Greenan during Reunion Weekend 2014; it hangs in the Chapel of Our Lady.

Fr. Greenan is survived by his older brother, Rev. Lambert Greenan, O.P., his Dominican Community at Saint Saviour’s Priory, his nieces, nephews, relatives, and friends. His funeral took place in St. Saviour’s Church, Dublin, on February 25.

In his note to Headmaster Tom Sheehy, Fr. Lambert Greenan wrote: “My brother always spoke to me with great affection of Canterbury and of the students and faculty he knew there.”

REUNION 2016 JUNE 10-12 50th Reunion Celebration for Class of 1966 Milestone Reunions for Class years ending in 1 or 6 and Farewell Celebration for Tom and Betsy Sheehy Tributes to Retiring Faculty Lou Mandler and Bev Lee (open to Classes 1990-2016) Details and invitation can be found at www.cbury.org/reunion2016 or Contact Jen Loprinzo, Director of Alumni and Parent Relations at jloprinzo@cbury.org or 800-526-1710 83

CLASSNOTES OBITUARIES Charles V. Sheehan ’48 Charles Vincent Sheehan, Jr. ’48 died on October 27, 2015, at his home in Highlands, NC. He was born in London, England on December 19, 1930, to Margaret Stokes Sheehan and Charles Vincent Sheehan.

Charles received a BS degree from Georgetown University and served in the United States Navy as a LT. J.G. He had a long career with the General Electric Company, spending the first ten years in Japan, Australia, and Brazil. He completed his tenure with Kidder, Peabody, and Co., an acquisition of GE. Charles served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Indian River Medical Center and was instrumental in developing the Heart Center program. From 20092015 he was Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Highlands-Cashiers Hospital. He was a member of Quail Valley Golf Club, John’s Island Club, and Wildcat Cliffs CC in Highlands, NC. He is survived by his wife Susan of 53 years. He also leaves behind six nephews and nieces and their children. He was preceded in death by his sister Patricia Dulles.

Denis K. Copland ’53 Denis K. Copeland, a retired textiles salesman, former spokesman for Eastman Kodak, a talented vocalist, and an Army 1st Lieutenant of the post-Korean War era passed away on January 10, 2016, in White Plains, NY, at the age of 80.

Born in New York City in 1935, Denis attended Iona Preparatory School and graduated from Canterbury before obtaining his BA from the University of Vermont.

Just after the Korean War, he served as an Army 1st Lieutenant and motor pool officer. He worked for a number of companies in the textile industry as a salesman and at one point was a major spokesman for Eastman Kodak getting quoted in the local papers regularly. Prior to retiring to Sarasota, FL, Denis lived in NYC for more than 20 years. He moved back to New York in July 2015 to be closer to his children.

While living in NYC, Denis was very active with the University Glee Club of New York City from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s. Upon retiring to Sarasota, he became very active with the Sarasota Chorus of the Keys. He was an excellent baritone and an avid lover of music in general, a trait he passed on to his children and grandchildren. He was unquestionably the life of the party and possessed unparalleled charm. His quick wit, smooth voice, and big personality will be sorely missed.

He was preceded in death by his son Sean Copeland, father Abbott J. Copeland, mother Nora K. Copeland, and brother Michael J. Copeland. Denis is survived by five children, Timothy, Michael, Kimberly Sheehan, Patrick Riordan, and Elizabeth Newman.

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Robert B. Grote Jr. ’82 On February 8, 2016, Rob Grote, 52, of North Adams, MA, died, surrounded by family and friends.

After graduating from Canterbury, Rob earned his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. He worked for more than 25 years as a restaurant manager before returning to school to fulfill his dream of a career in education. As a special education coordinator at BART Charter School, Rob coached the basketball team and helped students secure college placement. As director of student services at Martin Luther King Charter School of Excellence, Rob devoted himself to advocating for the needs of all students.

A big man, in stature and spirit, Rob brought laughter and memories to every gathering he attended.

A voracious reader, Rob loved to learn, to teach, and to debate philosophy, sports, music, and politics. His quick wit and loyal nature earned him a large and diverse group of lasting friends. Rob enjoyed spinning a good story, and, even better, a good speech. He never met a microphone he didn’t like. Rob was a champion of the underdog, and never hesitated to drop everything to come to the aid of a family member or friend in need. Rob relished his roles as husband, brother, father, uncle, and, most recently, as a very proud grandpa.

Born in Buffalo, NY, in 1963, Rob was predeceased by his father Bob. He is survived by his loving, wife Jodi; daughters Regan Madore and Shannon Grote; son Dylan Grote, mother Nancy Grote; siblings Virginia McAllister, Tom Grote, and Walter Grote, and Andrew Grote; and seven nieces and five nephews.

Timothy J. Sheridan ’84 Timothy John Sheridan, age 49, of Stamford, CT, died unexpectedly on February 2, 2016. Born on May 27, 1966, Tim was raised in Weston, CT. He was the son of Judy and Arthur Richard Sheridan and the beloved husband of Thaddea Pikul Sheridan.

After graduating from Canterbury, Tim went on to earn his undergraduate degree from Babson College.

Tim was a Managing Director of Global Payment Product Sales for Bank of America. Previously, he had spent many years at Citicorp.

Tim was a loving father who participated in many activities with his sons. The family particularly loved water sports, frequently making family trips to the Adirondacks.

In addition to his wife Thaddea, Tim is survived by his beloved sons Michael and David, his mother Judy, brother Jeff and wife Debra, as well as many nieces and nephews.

CANTERBURY SCHOOL 101 Aspetuck Avenue New Milford, Connecticut 06776-2825

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PARENTS OF GRADUATES: If this publication is addressed to your son or daughter and he or she no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, please notify the alumni office of his or her new mailing address (800-526-1710 or trice@cbury.org). Thank you.

MARC VANASSE ’73

www.cbury.org

Trustee Mike Carretta ’71 and Betsy and Tom Sheehy enjoy the final festivities at the Centennial Gala Celebration on November 20, 2015, at NYC’s Gotham Hall.