Moses Brown School - Mosaic Yearbook (Providence, RI)

Page 33 text:

Closs History LOWER SCHOOL CLUSTER of reluctant boys, sur- rounded by talkative mothers and sleepy fathers, assembled in the Pre-Prim- ary room in September 1935 to form the newest group of young hopefuls at Moses Brown. At that time most of us were con- tent to call Miss Woodbury Hey, miss - - all of us, in fact, except Franny Sargent, who preferred the appellation Mrs, Wood- enbury in memory of a long-lost Gordon School teacher. Once acclimated to other people, to the sandbox, and to reading, we were introduced to Miss Buifum, who, for all her labors, was rewarded only with many lop-sided ships with multi-colored portholes. joe Payan and the two Emerys as three melancholy Russians highlighted our production of Foreign Children, while others of us became momentarily a junior United Nations assembly. Mentally we returned from these foreign parts just in time to send some stubby-legged indi- viduals into our first Father and Son Day races. The next fall we were introduced to Miss Eastman, to the Weekly Reader, and to the daily story hour in the afternoon. We all sought to avoid the humiliation of having to put our initials on the blackboard for tardiness, but nearby candy stores and the winter's storms soon worked havoc with our unblemished records. Dave Graham, previewing greater things to come, por- trayed King Midas in our assembly, while the rest of the stage was filled by embar- rassed boys dressed as jonquils, daffodils, and other sweet, spring flowers. Miss Crawford found out, the next year, that our class had added Bill Hoey and Bert Nichols. Madame Warge arrived weekly in addition to our regulars, Mrs. Annin fwhose Friday morning musicales were the thingj and Miss Buffum. Madame insisted we were the best class yet, but we did our best to disprove her. Miss Craw- ford, on the other hand, was the recipient of some certainly unwanted advice: Dave Lownes desired that she have her hair cut. When the majority of the class added their approval, she allowed herself to be per- suaded, much to the general delight. That year Walt Disney readers entertained us, and subtraction tolled the knell for many of us. All in all, the time passed quickly. Although Miss Wilson's years should be remembered for many things - the box for our carefully labeled new fountain pens, the pre-holiday popcorn feasts, and a tour of the State House-only one thing re- mains of paramount importance to us: our production of Robin Hood. Dick Lemon played the title role, with Cannell as Little john, Sargent as Friar Tuck, Graham as the King, and Payan as the rotund Dame Daleg however, only one aspirant, Bert Nichols, could be coerced into playing Maid Marian. Many fist fights were staged to prove and reprove our heroine's masculinityg but in the final presentation, according to all, he Qshej was marvelous. A few weeks after the performance Mrs. Sopkin took a movie of the whole play, and afterwards Mrs. Emery entertained Qand fedj us on a coun- try picnic. At last we found ourselves during our year with Miss Pixley in the longed-for double room. As First Intermediates we immediately raised havoc by tipping over the piano, startling Mrs. Annin. Our sole scholastic achievement was made by Hoey, who composed the saga Murder in the Bath- room, which was promptly banned. With our new member, joe Johnston, we trooped over to Alumni Hall Friday afternoons to hear Dr. Damrosch's program. Hi Emery one day told our esteemed teacher that she was silly after she had read us Pigs Is Pigs, and was so excited that he fell out of his l29l

Page 32 text:

JOHN MAYI-IEW WOOD, JR. 87 Don Avenue, Rumford 16, R. I. johnny Baseball Squad IV, Team Vg Manager of Football Team lV Manager of Basketball Team IV: Secretary of Glee Club V Dance Committee V. l28l

Page 34 text:

chair onto the floor, where he remained for the rest of the day. ive wrote our first Tree Essays and attended our first Father and Son Day banquet. Whenever we became recalcitrant the next year, Miss Chappell would threaten us with the adjacent office of Mr. Thomas. Once a week Miss Eastman came over for our Audubon Club meetings. Graham, in- spired by Miss Chappell's stories about l'ell's grave, wrote a series of stories about his dog Pal. jim Sweet was a newcomer to our theatrical ventures, in which we rein- carnated some well-known Greek gods and goddesses. Our costumes were handmade in rustic shades of crimson and royal blueg our scenery was of Spartan simplicity- inainly because there wasn't any. At the end of the year we journeyed down to Sakonnet to attend another picnic at the Emerys'. Somehow, somewhere the bathing suits were lost, with a result that many had red faces because a lucky few on the porch had bi- noculars. Merle Seidel and Ralph Crosby joined us in time to take part in Miss Davis's Wednesday afternoon delinquent sessions -an all-too-regular feature, with general invitations issued. Mr. Allen introduced us to the perennial l97 Test, and Mr. Brigham endeavored to teach us the loca- tion of the Hindus River and other lore. On December 8th we assembled earlier than usual in order to hear Mr. Roosevelt's declaration of warg even in our small world we saw Mr. Eves, our geography teacher, called to the colors and soon replaced by Mrs. Herrick. The greater part of our free time was spent in idolizing and idealizing our sports masters - Messrs. McManus, Marker, Isherwood, and Abbot. Deserting athletics only temporarily, we presented a pot-pourri of Americana-the Epaminon- dus story, an account of the composition of the Star Spangled Banner, an excerpt from Penrod with Teddy Joslin acting that hero, and a brief scene commemorating Abraham Lincoln's birthday. We capped our efforts at the end of the year with a huge transpor- tation map. f 30 Our last year in the Lower School found us, including Mush, thrust into the edu- cational grasp of Sadie Herrick. ful am the most beautiful, most musical, most charming woman, aren't I, boys? she would ask.j A silent partner in our penmanship activities with her was the Caliph of Bag- dad, a peacock pin of gaudy colors. Al- though Mr. Houston was not suffering--at least visibly, we found after Christmas vaca- tion that he had suddenly vanished: in his place as English and History teacher was Mrs. Shawcross. We did all sorts of travel- ing- to Ten Mile River for a fishing trip, to Bob Beede's farm for the day, and to the various parts of Rhode Island. We played Country Day on the Varsity football field. For our last offering we threw together a play dealing with an unruly lad QTed jos- linj who had the history of Canada ground into him by his mother fAdelmanQ and the rest of us. Then the object of our first eight years at Moses Brown was finally at- tained: We were promoted from Lower School and could look forward to being lowly First Formers in the fall. I A faint glint could be seen in 0. J. B. H.'s eyes as he appraised the new group of young hopefuls back in September of '43, for ours was an especially promising group, who had all the inclinations towards bar- barism and bewildering facetiousness that would be our first dubious claim to fame. Forty expendables started the long trek through Upper School days, of whom only twenty, if the fates and Mr. Raines allow, will go on to higher learning at Commence- ment. Mr. Thomas greeted us on our opening day and told us about the system of classes: Mr. Henderson, about the bell system, and Mr. Howe, the demerit system. After the first few humdrum days of getting lost be- tween classes and wandering, meekly, de- spairingly back to Study Hall fif we could find itj were over, Mr. Howe deemed it time to call that all-important first class meeting in Room 8. After the general con- J