Groton School - Grotonian Yearbook (Groton, MA)

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and Mrs. Peabody went to Washington to assist in the Inaugural of one of their former first-formers. During your March vacation, you, having contributed money to help Finland during the winter term, heard your elders lamenting Russia's overwhelming of Finlandls Mannerheim Line. Japan's war against China was in its third year. While you were in New York you saw the giant, unfinished liner Queen Elizabeth which had been sneaked over to the safety of New York harbor. April brought you and some chicken pox germs back for the spring term, but those of you not stricken promptly offered your services at every possible moment to Ivan Dmitri, as he tried to photograph the school for a Saturday Evening Post article. The postponeddance, in the face of the Enew onslaught of chicken pox on school health, expired into final cancellation. Early' in May you helped welcome fifty-five graduates, one from each graduated Form, whocame to visit the Peabodys and to present them with a check fthe boys in school presented one, tooj, the Rector announcing in his acceptance that all of the money would go to extending the brick wall from the Auchincloss gate toward the Bacon gate. Also presented were handsome bound volumes containing a snapshot of, and hand-written letter from, every graduate. It was in this term that Parents House kitchen began to sell you Hon Wednesdays: hot dogs, Coca Colas, chocolate cake, Ritz crackers, doughnuts, on Saturdays: ham, cheese, jam, and chicken sandwiches, iced tea, and the same as on Wednesdays, omitting hot dogs. The month of May has been praised by many poets for various charms, but the local bard has not yet appeared to sing its pleasant, crowded confusion of ball games, crew races, evening marching, after-supper softball or niggerbaby, St. Marks game, Memorial Day parade. Prize Day came along June 14, but for you it was chiefly notable for its being your first day of final examinations, for which by now you had acquired a certain respect, in view of what failed ones could do to a vacation. But . -Finsr Fonai YEAR, , Third Razr: Curtis, lNlacShane, Kissel, Carter, Washburn Sccorul lfmr: Brown, Vreeland, Simpkins, llrs. Peabody: The Rector, Lawrence, Williams, dehlenocal - Front Roux' VVhitney, Booker, Prescott, Grospnor, Key, Lodge, Greenough, Sibley l29l

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Corp.? CHe couldn't, and didn't, and so, shrewdly, sold the Presidency of the Corp. to Lodgej How could Kissel know the way to catch a fainting Greenough in choir one Sunday morning? He merely stepped back out of the way to give Mally more room for his fade-out. How could half the dormitory not get sick at midnight after a mammouth Hallowe'en feed like that one? What could Key, all alone on the Second Wachusetts, do to stem the tide of Second Monadnocks, fortified by Grosvenor, Lodge, Sibley, and Washburn? Nothing: so Key's team lost the season a few days before the school, team lost to St. Marks at Southboro, 26-20. 4 ,' ' A. You next turned your energies to soccer or touch-tackle, while your historian busied himself preparing such a masterpiece for, his Thanksgiving Day,-,addr-iss that during its delivery in chapel Vreeland passed out cold, but, ieeling the 'Rector's even colder stare, revived instantly, and walked right out onthe whole deplorable situation. The rest of you, deprived of further diversion, felt obligili to continue the pose of lis- tening intently Can art you had quickly learnedj to the end. Less thanione minute after this service deMenocal with his neighbors was off to Boston for a day with his family, a vacation so utterly delightful, he suddenly realized upon his return, that he thereafter visited his family every few weeks for my sister's wedding, sir. You finished off Novemberls events by electing Grosvenor and Key counsellors, and Lawrence, secretary. Soon after the holiday celebrating Mr. Gardner's birthday on December 2nd, things seemed a bit dull to you at Mr. Regan's table, in spite of occasional black clouds billowing up from the toaster as some elite member of High Societyl' forgot his duty. So Prescott tested the effect of cooling Mr. Regan's plate with a chunk of ice, with the result that he stood lone sentry at the window during certain specified hours. Else- where in Hundred House deMenocal and Vreeland were struck with the same experi- mental virus and painted Mr. Moss's patent leather shoes with black lacquer, and initialed the soles. Result: reorganization of personnel of that Shoe Shine Corp. Mean- while the Dramat was about to do three short plays, Laurence Housman's Sister Gold, Barrie's The Old Lady Shows Her Medals, and Murray's The Pipe in the Fields. Washburn and Key having heard the title of this third one, and being experienced along that line, had tried out, and of course were accepted for the cast, Washburn as the spirit of the pipe, interestingly. But the rest of the form were content to experiment with gliders and model planes indoors, though deMenocal's method of passing the time in Mr. Gallien's IA English was to sit on the fioor and play with toy automobiles, outdoors, chief sport for all of you was tracking Mr. Williams on his paper chases. As this first term reached its traditional climax of examinations, Carol Service, and the Rector's reading of The Christmas Carol'l by CHARLES DICKENS, you all stood around the dormitory in helpless wonder, marvelling at the ingenuity of prefects Pifer, Rives, Walker, and Webb, as they re-packed your trunks with all you had brought plus all that arrived by express during the term. The chief excitement in the war news during the term had been the Royal Navy's catching the German Graf Spec on December 13th, off Uruguay. After Christmas vacation you found that Mr. Calhoun of the English Department had been replaced by Mr. Philbrick. In your first noteworthy snow-fighting achieve- ment of January, according to the Weekly, the First Form easily defeated the Second, with a little outside aid, and on Sunday? joined in a battle royal of the First through the Fourth Forms near Mr. Hallowell's house, resulting in some black eyes and very sore arms. ,In other fields of endeavor, y'our. accomplishments included Lawrence's 74 to lead the form on the Time Current Events,TestJ Scarlet fever appeared early in the term, deferring the dance, but the Dran1at's 'fCharley's Auntln the 'Gym Exhibition, Confirmation, and the Band and Glee Club Concert were carried through as planned. In the finals of the new boys fives singles towiament Key was the winner. The Rector ' E T izslh .

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they finally ended on Tuesday the 18th, and at the Last Night Exercises the Rector read out that you had elected as your Second Form oflicers, Brown and Grosvenor, counsellors, and Key, secretary. During this very brief term, you had been reading in your headlines of the successive invasion by German armies of first, Denmark, then Norway, then Belgium, and Holland, and Luxembourg. The British had evacuated Dunkirk the day before Memorial Day, while you practiced your marching on the road. Italy entered the war as you went into your first final examination, and on your first Prize Day, and the Rector's last as headmaster, Paris had fallen to the Ger- mans. That day was to change your own destinies more than anyone could foresee at the time. Before your Second Form year could open, the smoky conflagration that had ruined the gymnasium floor had had its prototype in the summer's events in World War II. France had been defeated by Germany and Italy in June 5 Britain had attacked the French Fleet in July 5 and in August, Italy captured Somaliland, the air blitz on Britain started, and Rumania ceded to Bulgaria and Hungary. In the early September weeks before you returned to school, Italy had invaded Egypt, and President Roosevelt had approved Selective Service, bringing the war that much nearer your own immediate fu- tures. In the foreground of this world-picture of rapid change, your school was starting its new era under Mr. and Mrs. Crocker. Messrs Kromer and Loewenberg were new to the faculty, and to your Form were added: Barnes, Cann, Dwight, Hunter, Hely- Hutchinson, Low, Pomeroy, Pond, Schieffelin, Selous, Shedden, West and Wood, five of these from England. Of these thirteen only five would be present on your own June Prize Day. The football season was soon in full sway with most of you somewhat reluctantly pushed into a noble experiment of six-man football on the Second and Third clubs. Great was the scorn, of course, of Greenough, Grosvenor, Key, Lodge, Sibley, Washburn, and West, all of whom played the regular game on the Firsts. Wachusetts won both First and Second Club seasons that year. On Saturdays you deigned to watch the school team defeat most of its opponents, whenever you were not in a long line behind the stands buying Eskimo pies from the Mish Ford robber barons. A few days after its 20-6 defeat of St. Marks, the first team, as the Weekly put it: went to Mrs. Nash's house for tea 'and also for instructions in the intricacies of knitting to help the British War Relief Society. For the same cause, some of you in printing classes helped turn out sixteen hundred copies of knitting instructions for Boston agencies. Money was raised for the purchase of a Mobile Canteen. The combined impact upon the school of the war, and of the new ideas of Mr. and Mrs. Crocker was fashioning many changes during this term. You were allowed to play touch-football Sunday afternoons, and the gray-flannel, white soft shirt required costume for Sunday afternoons was dispensed With, your Sunday afternoon study period was omitted in good weather, and you could omit evening chapel attendance if you had been to Early Communion. In November Mr. Moss announced his engagement. After the Thanksgiving Day service, at which Mr. Hallowell gave the address, it was noticeable that many more of you had uncovered family'l in the Boston area, to whose houses you could go in somewhat vain effort to compete with the now well-established deMenocal formula for leave of absence. The Lower Infirmary Dormitory, administered by Mr. Loewenberg through the week, and by prefects over gala weekends Call weekends were gala down therej had an original personnel of Brown, Carter, Greenough, Grosvenor, Whitney, and West, but one by one, and fracas by fracas, the group was liquidated or replaced. The rest of you dwelling in' Mr. Moore's dorm were not to be outdone by West's lurid tales of rows, so you had yours right in Mr. Moore's study, until I will not stand for it and the couch will not stand for it drove your mischievous inspirations perforce into the Hundred House schoolroom. There one evening, for the benefit of the Art Department, a nice, shiny alarm clock was i30l