Groton School - Grotonian Yearbook (Groton, MA)

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Form History Your history begins before noon on Tuesday the twenty-first of September, 1937, when seventeen of you were welcomed by the Rector and Mrs. Peabody, and led by your unaccountably gay and light-hearted parents up to Mr. Gallien's dormitory. There, all the adults seemed to be having a jolly reunion while you furtively stole nervous glances at those other sweating boys, as you heavy-heartedly unpacked trunks in your dormitory. A roast beef dinnerisomehow ended after interminable scrutinizing of other new kids, and farewells to families were dried away by the sight of much jollification through the afternoon, as old boys returned to pound one another in laughing excitement. That evening your dormitory master began the long process of acquainting you with the manners of this strange new world, and for some weeks you moved in a pleasant coma of blissful mystifieation at the surprising discoveries every single day produced. Before long you came to know one another, what with such helpful introductions as My name is Wicky, I caught an eleven-and-one-half-pound salmon-want a picture of me? A few days after this, Mr. Andrews in the first form room, having warned that the next one to ask a question would get a blackmark for an answer, promptly met Dirk Roosevelt's with not only the promised dusky, but with expulsion from the room. Curtis was wiser, in be- ginning to sleep through Mr. A's classes, a practice he became more and more expert in as the years went on. Welling, meeting a similar fate at the hands of Mr. Lynes, had the additional thrill of being sent to the Rector, where, confused in the etiquette of the occa- sion, he opened his explanations: Mr.-Sir-Doctor-Rector-Peabody-Sir-''g in fact he never got much farther, for the Rector seemed to dispatch him in a twinkling. Your first weeks were spent in mild mauling of one another in Third Club football under Mr. Robertson fprophetic note in the Weekly: Coogan, quarterbacking the Third Club Team, was outstandinguj, no mention made, of course, of how Russell piggy- backed him to his smashing gains, pleasant variations in these weeks included the School's fifty-third birthday, when, after a blissful day on the river, you put on blue suits to parade from the schoolroom to the dining-room singing John Brown's Body to the exciting strains of Mr. Call's trumpet. There followed one of Miss Cram's superb banquets, the shout, We want blue bottles , a silence, a scraping of chairs g a fine song and then merry adjournment to the Hall to see your first school movie, Sabu in Elephant Boy. As you became acquainted with traditions, one by one, the Rector told you of more, when he dedicated the Memorial to Mr. Gardner and preached about him one Sunday late in October. You were next shown Hallowe'en as observed in Groton when Mr. Gallien sent you to bed staggering deliciously under the burden of a mammouth feed, and thrilled by Mr. Jorgensen's prestidigitation. On the morrow, according to the Weekly, The preacher in morning chapel was the Rev. John Crocker, '18, a graduate of the school. By this date you were so used to seeing Chub Peabody's team steam-roller all opposition you could hardly be blamed for wondering at the upper forms' hysterical celebration of a 26-6 victory achieved at Southboro earlier in the afternoon. After the Armistice Day holiday which immediately followed, you decided upon Kingsford and Howe as counsellors and Davison as secretary. Thanksgiving caught you unaware of how easy it was to un- cover relatives in the Boston area, so after hearing Mr. Dick deliver the address in chapel, most of you spent the day in frolic hereabouts, winding up again in a dinner of unfor- gettable excellence. By now Roosevelt had entered the famed shuttle system in Latin, i21l

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in which he was fired on altemate days from first Mr. DeVeau's, then Mr. Andrews' di- vision, so that for the rest of the year what Latin he learned was largely in the detention of whichever master could recall having seen him in class. Bewildered by this form of democracy, Dirck urged Distler to help dispatch a letter to Hitler, in which the form's slave system was baredg Coogan served Davison, Poillon served Kingsford, served Hoyt, served Howe, and Howe? Further evidence of democracy's decay was seen at Mr. Regan's table, where Mr. Washburn the trustee uttered his classic: I don't know about you boys, but I like the tips just after Mr. Regan had succeeded in training you to love canned asparagus from butt to tip. The term ended in a glorious climax of the Dramat's presenta- tion of Murder in the Cathedral, of dreaded examinations, the Carol Service, the Rector's reading of The Christmas Carol, and a generally festive Yuletide spirit. The Christmas issue of the Weekly marked the literary debut of Coogan C a few birds were hopping around, trying to find a few crumbs as something to keep them warm- J and of Chambers whose eccentric item Whippersnapper, Sr. began a career that was to culminate in his being Editor-in-Chief of the Grotonian. You were soon introduced to the winter term's characteristic activities: the Service of Lights, Mr. Lyncs's sing-songs and piano recitalsg debates, to which you were in those days invited by special dispensation: gym exhibit, in which Howe and Welling won their first stripe, the dance, and the production of Yeoman of the Guard in which many of you took part. By this time Davison had ominously soaked his first blackmark, but deGersdorii' to the Rector's astonishment had not yet identified Howe in the form. Mr. Zahner had capped Robb with a waste-basket, Crocker had recited to Mr. Gallien God sped, cried the watch, and Mr. DeVeau's Latin grades had skyrocketed with the aid of catalytic agents from Bruces' fountain. A late February ice-storm provided you the rare opportunity of skating in front of the schoolhouse, on the tennis courts, and on the football fields. The earliest excitement of the spring term was the dramatic departure of Distler and Roosevelt. Some of Robb's letters from glamour-girl Brenda Frazier were found for certain to be entirely authentic, but he-man-Hoyt, contemptuous of such social precocity, demonstrated the modern Spartan boy by carving his finger and continuing to butter his bread until he passed out cold, to be gloriously borne from the table, dripping blood, in the arms of an awed prefect, to Mither. Easter was at school that year, and was marked by the Rector's dedication of the Davison Room, in which you were to pass many happy hours. On your Third Club diamond by the flagpole, Messrs. Moore and Nichols strove to reduce the menace to passers-by of your erratic batting: you were proficient enough, though, to climax the season by defeating the Second Clubs 10-6, as well as by drubbing the third and fourth crews. Meanwhile on the river Ozzie had been terrify- ingly canoe-wrecked in two feet of water, had shrieked t'Help, but seemed not to learn, as he spent most of the season steering fine Monadnock shells into the luxuriant shrubs of the river-bank. In spite of measles, May Services not held in the Town Hall, St. Marks' defeat of us 3-2, and Nobles' win on the river, your spirits survived, in fact so exuberant were they on one occasion in the dormitory that Robb and Gould emerged with six each, and the whole dormitory with a three-day exile. The Weekly's picture of your first Memorial Day is standard reading: after a preliminary inspection of uniforms, the School Company marched to Chapel to attend the Memorial Day Service, then fell in again, led by the Fife, Drum and Bugle Corps, and marched to the village to join the parade there. The Misses Peabody served refreshments at the cemetery, and the Exercises at f23l