Beaver Country Day School - Senior Yearbook (Brookline, MA)

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FROM THESE ROOTS THE LOWER SCHOOL NURSERY But Mommy, I don’t want to go to school . . Inevitably, there it was. All we saw at first was a pile of bricks behind which the Little Red School house stood—our home away from home for the next two years. However, there were redeeming features; the sandbox, the sled shed, the apparatus .. . also less redeeming features; Mrs. Hcgemann’s office and the ever occupied corner. Already the developing personalities were becoming evident. Clare Dana discovered the opposite sex and decided to set up housekeeping in the sand castle which Barbie Ray and Pam Horst were alternately construsting and destroying. Miss G)ffin, our singing teacher, was not always happy KINDERGARTEN Hurry up Mommy, I can't wait!” We were club women at last. The club to which anyone who was anyone (in other words, everyone) belonged was the sled society. Our clubhouse was located underneath the Little Red Schoolhouc. One by one. Cherry Whitney, Holly Rubel, and the aforementioned personalities crawled solemnly on their stomachs through the hole in the foundation which led to the inner sanctum. Seated on broken sleds, we pledged our brotherhood. TRANSITION Where's my peanubutter sanwich, Mum? I wanna go to school now!” Tragedy struck in Transition—the boys did not return. Frustrated, as we tried to adjust to this terrible turn of events, we resorted to scraping the dirt from the with our personalities, and the sand didn't help the piano cither. However, the strains of Drill Ye Tarriers, Drill could still be heard on the hockey field, in the boiler room, and in the studio. At the end of Nursery School we had all matured considerably. Our distraught mothers read: Barbie is curious and at the exploratory age in her play activity ... Dough, finger paint and water play all interest Pam for short periods . . . “Dramatic play in the doll corner seems to be Clare's favorite activity . . With such talent our teachers were strangely unrclcctant to send us through the sliding doors to Kindergarten. Here comes the bride. All dressed in purple Stepped on a turtle And down came her girdle. Our lusty tunc shocked (we hoped) the unenlightened of the hockey field, the boiler room, and the studio. The teachers tried to cultivate our innate domesticity. We sewed ric-rac on the Kindergarten curtains, and Cherry was the chief ric-rackcr, or ric rac wrecker, depending on the point of view. cracks in the floor during rest. We struggled through our A B C's to the tunc of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star , all of course in preparation for College Boards which were to be taken eleven years hence. 66 A second grade birthday party. FIRST GRADE Grade one brought all sorts of lovely things including Ellen Wyzanski who had to get up at 5:33 A.M. to walk across the street (Now she gets up at 8:37 A M.). Upon arriving at school. Miss Jones offered us our mid-morning snack—crackers and juice— but we preferred paste and lined paper, which added the development of sophisticated taste to our growing intellects. Now we were in our advanced course of elementary reading. SECOND GRADE This year Dick, Jane, Mother, Father, Spot and Baby entered the class. Spot ran, Jane went, (she is probably still going) and Dick played, ad infinitum. The year progressed and soon winter was upon us—an endless train of mittens and leggings. Saralyn, our newest member, struggled with her undersized boots muttering, Never since the day I was bone . . ' In red-faced frustration, others of us lost our Northern Composure also.

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HISTORY

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Ellen Wyzanski as Prince Charming and Cherry Whitney as Cinderella. THIRD GRADE In this period of our lives, the watchword was watching birds. Armed with binoculars we set out for the unknown, unexplored regions behind the tennis courts. We sighted bald eagles, cormorants, great blue herons and snowy egrets (or sea gulls to the less imaginative). Gail Binncy, who was an extremely sharpeyed bird-watcher, discovered an owl perched on top of a rotten oak tree. The owl remained in the same position on all successive visits. (It must have been petrified . .. wood) Clare Dana playing the fairy' godmother in the sixth grade performance of Cinderella. FOURTH GRADE Overheard at P.T.A. meeting: I don’t know what these teachers are thinking of— allowing children to play with fire. Why my daughter tells me they are experimenting with air pressure, but I fail to sec why they have to light bonfires under gasoline cans! Why my daughter cells me that the classroom was transformed into a blazing inferno!” A weak-willed defense for progressive education was then proffered. Our next step took us from the fires of the upper world, to the fires of the underworld. On the stage in Bradly Hall, surrounded by Plutonian caverns, we produced Orpheus and liurydice. Karen O'Keeffe and Sherry Atkinson made particularly convincing underworld Furies—braids, braces, and all. The social season started with a smash. It seems everybody who was anybody (in other words, everybody) gave birthday parties. We pitied girls with summer birthdays— all those presents down the drain. It was so exhausting— carrying on all that small talk, pinning tails on all those donkeys, drinking innumerable glasses of tomato juice, all the time awaiting the cake and ice cream. We left the fourth grade wiser in the ways of the world. FIFTH GRADE This year had its ups and downs. Marcia and Dodi, the inseparables joined us, the former wielding a formidable baseball bat, the latter wielding a not-so-formidablc tablespoon. (How prophetic!) We as a group learned the technique of giving excuses for unfinished homework. All our family dogs at that time possessed razor-sharp teeth and a ravenous craving for fifth grade homework papers. However, as we fabricated excuses, hinting darkly of sick aunts and mothers who emptied wastebaskets, Mrs. Peebles gravely began her march to the corner. There, with calm deliberation, she removed the time worn imaginary violin from its case, tuned it, and launched into the soaring strains of The Humiliation Waltz. If the shoe fir, wc wore it. To Hades with Dick and Jane! Foreign influence now pervaded our literature as wc met Jean and Marie LeFevrc a la gare. We followed their checkered careers through le salon, la cuisine, la sallc a manger, and ultimately dans la chambre a couchcr. The studio, the hockey field and the boiler room were regaled with the foreign flavor of Sur la Pont d'Avignon and Frcre Jacques . At the end of the year, Dodi played hostess to the entire class at her farm in Southboro. The day was dreary and overcast. Undaunted, on hand and knee, wc supplicated the sun god and, true to our call the sun broke through the clouds. (However, nobody went swimming anyway—the ice was too thick!) SIXTH GRADE Life is real, life is earnest. For years we had heard lurid reports of Mr. Laughland’s violence—tales of chalk and erasers hurtling through the air at recalcitrant students. So with trembling knees and quivering hearts, wc anticipated his wrath. The fateful day didn't dawn until the year was half over. Mr. Laughland was reading Grammar Made Fun. Penny Sawyer and Ann Strek were reading True Confessions. This was a situation conducive to violence. The next day, Mr. Laughland was reading Grammar Made Fun; Penny and Strek were reading Grammar Made Fun also. Wc employed the invaluable precepts of our language training in writing our first long paper. Wc madly cut pictures from the National Geographic Magazine, and gathered our vast knowledge from the World Book Encyclopedia . .. Ix ng papers were fun in those days. There were other distractions from the academic; The Splinter reported: Last Thursday the school enjoyed a talented performance of Pinafore ably directed by Mr. Laughland. and performed by the sixth grade. Gail Binncy did a really superb job as the Admiral, Ellen Wyzanski was a wonderful captain, and Cherry Whitney, as Josephine sang very sweetly. The audience was very enthusiastic, and a good time was had by all.” Need wc say more? 67