Exeter Bulletin Fall 2003

Bennett says he would simply often wander into the Swifts’ house looking for Tom Swift. “There were no locked doors,” Bennett says. “You wouldn’t have to call your friends before you visited them. Your parents knew everybody else’s parents.”

This could be particularly helpful in some cases, such as when Bourne began to sleepwalk on a regular basis. One night, as a 6-year-old first-grader, she left her family’s apartment in Webster Hall and walked in on faculty member Arthur Gilcreast in his apartment in McConnell Hall. “He was watching a story about Charlie Manson on the 11 o’clock news,” says Bourne. After Gilcreast got over his fright, he called Bourne’s father, who promptly retrieved his still-sleeping daughter.

One minor drawback to living in dorms, according to Brown, was the ban on painting or hanging things on bedroom walls. “Finally, when I was 11, we moved into Moulton House, and my parents informed me that in this house, I was allowed to choose my own wallpaper,” Brown says. “Maybe it was all the pent-up frustration from a decade of institutional beige, but I selected a psychedelic, mad-scientist, test-tube, labyrinth print. A very exciting day.”

Some faculty children thrive as students in Exeter’s demanding academic environment; others struggle before finding their balance. In his recent memoir The Imaginary Girlfriend, John Irving ’61 writes of the difficulties he experienced as an Academy student:

“How many kids get to grow up across the street from a college-level gymnasium and live 50 feet from their best friend’s house?” —Kevin Mahoney ’92

“I could never have qualified for Exeter through normal admissions procedures; I was a weak student—as it turned out, I was dyslexic, but no one knew this at the time. Nevertheless, I was automatically admitted to the Academy in the category of faculty child. My father [Colin Irving] taught in the history department; he’d majored in Slavic languages and literature at Harvard—he was the first to teach Russian history at Exeter. I initiated a heightened level of intrafamily awkwardness by enrolling in his Russian history course. Dad rewarded me with a C+.”

Heyl also felt his share of pressure. “I was born to go to Exeter and a private college, and I knew that,” Heyl says. “I kind of got the sense that I was representing my father and the faculty by my very existence.”

For Bourne, the transition from Academy child to Academy student wasn’t always an easy one. “I was just baffled by the expectations,” she says, adding that by “senior year, it started to all come together.”

Dennehy also was challenged as a student. “It was strange in some ways, comfortable in a lot of others,” he says. “Academically, it was a huge change. I had to prove myself a lot more than other students did. I think it just motivated me more. ”

Dennehy’s sister has better memories. “I truly enjoyed being a student there,” Shapiro says. “Some of my best friends still are from here. I felt like I had a really big family.”

In childhood, worries about academics are still years away for faculty children, whose first task is to familiarize themselves with a sprawling, 471-acre campus and all those buildings. It seems enormous to a child. “When you’re a kid, even going over to the other side of campus was a big deal,” Mike Mahoney says. “Front Street was like the great barrier. That was the border.”

History instructor Bill Jordan (right) gives a lift to daughter Emma. Above: Academy students like Ratha Ly ’05 often become like family to faculty children like Shelagh and Emily Coombs, not to mention beloved babysitters.

A Reunion All Their Own
Faculty children from the 1950s and 1960s return to campus for a first-ever reunion.

A total of 58 adult fac brats and 43 family members returned
to campus last June for “The First Unofficial Fac Brat Family Reunion.”

On June 21, 2003, 58 adult children of Academy faculty and staff returned to campus for “The First Unofficial Faculty Brat Family Reunion”—not just PEA’s first such gathering, but, as far as we know, a first for any boarding school. This precedent-setting event (which was covered in The New York Times) was the result of locating and inviting more than 200 over-50 “fac brats” and their siblings to come back to Exeter and reconnect with each other.

The idea for this one-of-a-kind reunion started in 1991, when we began to talk about how much fun it would be to reunite the gangs of faculty brats who had grown up together in and around the Academy during the late 1950s and early 1960s. For the next several years, we would mention the possibility of such a reunion to Jan Woodford ’41, ’49 (Hon.), associate director of alumni/ae affairs, whenever we saw her, and Jan repeatedly offered her enthusiastic support. Finally, in February of this year, the three of us sat down with a group of our fellow faculty brats—Peter Clark ’59, Sam Heath ’72, Betsy Bickel Hersam, John Heyl ’71, Lexi Kraus, Liz Niebling and David Swift ’64—and started planning.

Our first challenge was to find the children of faculty members, particularly those who had not attended the Academy. Using alumni/ae records, faculty obituaries, the Internet and the collective fac brat grapevine, we were able to track down 200-plus faculty and staff children.

As we began making calls, we were delighted to discover that just the mention of the phrase “Exeter faculty brat” created an instant rapport, whether we had known the person we were calling or not. Almost without exception, the idea of the reunion was met with enthusiasm, and there was clear disappointment among those who would not be able to attend. In the end, 58 fac brats attended the reunion, bringing with them 43 family members, including 14 emeriti parents. They came from as far away as the California, Arizona, Ohio and Washington, D.C. All six New England states were well represented.

The reunion started under sunny skies with a picnic lunch held in front of the Davis Student Center. In some cases close friends reconnected after a separation of more than 40 years. Tales of childhood experiences filled the air, as did plenty of resounding laughter.

After the picnic, the whole contingent moved into the student center, where we arranged ourselves in a timeline, with natural “generations” of faculty children bunched together. As we introduced ourselves one-by-one, from youngest to oldest, nary a dozen introductions were completed before one woman pointed her finger at a younger fac brat and said, “I babysat for you!” A few introductions later, someone else pointed to her and said, “And I babysat for you!” That statement was repeated at least half a dozen times as we worked our way through our introductions.

Part of the group stayed on in the student center to discuss both the joys and difficulties of growing up as a faculty child on campus. Participants found it heartening to compare notes so many years later and to discover many shared experiences, some delightful, some challenging.

A common thread was a sense that the Academy was home. Growing up on campus, fac brats enjoy a remarkable sense of community and freedom. Each “generation” developed its own identity and subculture. One generation went so far as to incorporate itself as the Faculty Brats Incorporated (or FBI for short), and they merrily terrorized the campus until their elders reined them in. At the reunion, one member of the FBI proudly produced the original FBI flag they used to surreptitiously raise up the Academy flagpole at night.

While the first group reminisced, another group went outside to climb the magnificent beech tree adjacent to the flagpole green to look for initials they had carved there some 45 years earlier. Back in the 1950s when they were carving away, Lee Taylor, then head of the PEA grounds crew, came by one afternoon and caught a bunch of them red-handed. After calling them down from their high perches, he made a remarkable bargain with them. With great seriousness, he said, “If you will stop carving in this tree, I will give it to you.” Such a deal! They accepted his offer on the spot and became proud owners of the tree. The question lingers: How many times did Lee Taylor give the tree away and how many other faculty brats now share the rights of ownership?

In the evening, we gathered at Phelps Science Center for cocktails and a sumptuous dinner. An infectious party atmosphere set the tone for many more stories and lots more laughter. After dinner, a number of faculty brat musicians jammed well into the night, while others drifted away with the special joy that comes from reconnecting with old and dear friends.

Without the Academy’s generous support and Jan Woodford’s dedication to its success, the First Unofficial Faculty Brat Family Reunion would probably not have happened. Those of us who were able to attend were very pleased by the school’s warm welcome, and for some of us it still felt like home.

John Stevens, now a technical writer for Hewlett Packard, grew up on campus where his father, Leonard Stevens, was a member of the English department from 1942 until his retirement in 1968. Sandy Davis’ father, Leverett Davis, taught religion courses at the Academy in the late 1940s. During his years at the Academy, Sandy’s stepfather was Elliot Fish, who taught French. Sandy is a co-founder and principal of Changewise, Inc., which offers a variety of services in leadership and organization development.