| Finding a Friend in a Book — By Sean Davis ’92 |
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When I was 15 years old and living with my family in Argentina, I doubt I had read more than two books cover to cover. I first heard of Exeter through a catalog of U.S. boarding schools, and picked it in large part due to its proximity to my father’s family home in Maine. The first Exeter graduate I met was my dad’s friend, John E. Purcell ’47, at the American Club in Buenos Aires in the summer of 1989, just a few weeks before I was scheduled to leave for Exeter, where I would spend the next three years. “Pretty neat guy,” I recall thinking. That was to be the only time I met Mr. Purcell. Yet since that one brief meeting, pieces of Mr. Purcell’s past have slowly materialized—through occasional discussions with his son, also named John, and through conversations with my dad. They were similar men, both Americans working for U.S. companies abroad. Mr. Purcell also lived in South Africa; in Iran, where John was born; in Brazil; and, of course, in Argentina, where, like my dad, he married an Argentine. They were both golfers, witty men who enjoyed uncomplicated lives. Mr. Purcell died climbing Aconcagua, the Western Hemisphere’s highest peak in 1995. • • •
It is February 18, 2003, President’s Day, and I am visiting John at his house in East Hampton, NY, for the weekend. It is 7 a.m. and I have just finished feeding Alexandra, my newborn daughter. Sunlight streams through the window, hitting the books on the shelf. My time at Exeter turned me into an avid reader, and I find myself studying the titles. Some seem old, yet others clearly are not. They are all beautiful, warm and obviously well read. As I thumb through the books, I realize some have markings in them: words, phrases and full sentences written in the margins. My own books are all scratched up, but who would mark such elegant old books? Then the thought dawns: These are Mr. Purcell’s books from Exeter and Amherst. Alongside, there are newer books as well. Here’s one I read during my senior year at Exeter. A 1991 review clipped from The New York Times is tucked inside. We read the book at almost the same time. Inside the newer books, I find typed two- and three-page summaries of each chapter. Maybe this is a habit Mr. Purcell took up in retirement? Maybe he never had the time before? One thing is clear: This man studied all his life. He never stopped. One way he learned was by carrying on conversations with his books, writing in their margins, rereading certain sections years later, just as I like to do with mine. A history book of India has a letter inside, one of those English writing papers which folds into its own envelope. Even though I shouldn’t read it, I can’t help myself. The letter was written in 1977 by a friend of Mr. Purcell’s, an employee of the Chase Manhattan Bank in Liberia. The man had fallen on hard times, and the letter is a note of gratitude for $300 which Mr. Purcell had sent him. It reads as if his problems (and maybe those of the entire country) are political in nature. Despite his unsophisticated English, his words are deeply moving. • • •
Since that bright snowy morning, I have asked my dad, now 75, to send me snippets of his own memories by mail. I don’t have his books to search for clues about his past, but it’s really his memories I’m after, so that I can share them with Alexandra in years to come. My dad was born in 1928 in Maine, and with the help of the GI Bill attended Colby College. After a couple of years spent selling some of the first kerosene refrigerators in Cuba and then Burma, he was shipped by Goodyear to Argentina, where he eventually became friends with John Purcell. Someday, I will take Alexandra to Argentina, and when I do I would like to tell her stories of her grandfather and Mr. Purcell, men from New York and Maine who chose to make their lives in Argentina. Sean Davis now lives in London, where he is studying for his MBA. |
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