KENT PLACE, Summit, N.J. A School for Girls. Mrs. SARAH WOODMAN PAUL, A.B., Wellesley. Miss ANNA SOPHIA WOODMAN, A.B., Wellesley.
Kent Place is a home school and a working school, providing an attractive home life and sound academic training from primary through college-preparatory work. There is individual attention and close contact between girls and teachers.
There are now on the ten acres of grounds four buildings,— the House, the Gables, the Gymnasium, and the School House,— with earth tennis courts, a hockey field, a basket-ball field, and adequate room for other out-of-door sports.
The Gymnasium is modern and well equipped. The School House was built in 1913. Especial attention was given to providing in the best possible way for the four important requisites: space, heat, light, and ventilation.
The House is devoted exclusively to the home and has room for thirty-five girls. The Gables, a modern private house opened in the fall of 1918 to meet the needs of the growing school, provides a home for ten of the older girls and contains an isolated infirmary under the immediate care of the registered nurse.
The school offers a college preparatory course preparing for the comprehensive and old-style examinations, and a general course which is largely elective and may include work in the Home-making Department.
Write Mr. Sargent, 14 Beacon Street, Boston—See pace 767.
MAY FESTIVAL IN THE SCHOOL GROUNDS
Here I am, some 47 years later . . . it's a graduation ritual.
Don't I look thrilled??? Not. Definitely, a "I think you had to be there" item but it made me chuckle. And just as a note, our class did them in. They closed the boarding department that summer. The day school is alive and well.
STAMBERG: Yeah. No electricity in the cabin, no running water in the cabin. They were cabins, and when it rained, you pulled a canvas curtain across the windows and you had to go down a little boardwalk to the facilities, and you brought in pitchers filled with water and poured them in basins in order to brush your teeth. So it was pretty rugged.
Trekking down to the latrine in the dead of night, in the rain, was not one of my most favorite memories. (We soon discovered it was easier, if not less sanitary, to sort of balance our bottoms out the windows.) Nor was, come to think of it, the poison ivy . . . a favorite memory. But it was the summer camp my mother had attended and so, that summer after her death, I too attended Camp Po-ne-mah. It closed down some 25 years ago. I was not responsible. For all that I didn't like and for all the homesickness, they had horses. Put me and a horse in the same sentence and I was, as they say, a happy camper.
My mother (on the right), as a happy camper . . . I don't think her butt ever hung out a window . . .
See the notorious windows????
And here I am circa 1962
All I need to complete the ensemble is an over sized pocketbook with a huge can of hair spray and a tube of white lipstick hanging out and I'd be the epitome of Jersey Girl style. In case you didn't catch it, I'm the tall, skinny, slouching one, second from the left with her mother's cankles.
Then, I found this guy's description of his drive around the lake where I grew up:
". . . I think I should take it once more around the lake. Then I think, no, that may not be a good idea. Let's be more specific about why it's called the Rust Bucket. The tires are cracked, under inflated. The chassis is sagging from rust. . . . So, I get in, and I'm off. Decide to head toward the bridge first. I figure if it's gonna melt down, it'll be after a ways, so I better get over the bridge early. Shouldn't clog up the bridge for my neighbors. That wouldn't be good."
Insert: The bridge is a single lane "road" running across the top of the damn at the end of the lake. Very narrow and very creepy. Water on one side and a sheer drop on the other.
"Well, over the bridge and off past West Beach, head poking out of the little thing like George Jetson. . . . Then it's off up around the bend, through the woop-dee-do over by Columbo's house. With thirty-five year old shock absorbers and tires maybe nearly as old, let me tell you, it was one heck of a woop-dee-do. Roller coaster class. Then down around the north shore. There it is, Indian road. I come to a stop and consider whether I should venture out onto a main road. Should I stay or should I go. The car is unregistered, uninsured and no plates. A wise man would have turned around and gone back the same way rather than keep going. I am not a wise man. I look both ways, then onto Indian Road for the 900 feet before I can get off onto the east side of the lake for the rest of the trip around. I should be worried, but I'm not. Wisdom is a burden. Stupid people are happier. I'm smiling my way down Indian Road like a bobble-head doll in a Tonka truck.
Then it's off Indian, back onto Pines Lake Drive, past a couple more walkers, a dog with a man on a leash, a nice old lady out picking weeds. Up the hill towards the school. Come on lil' Red, you can do it. Drop it to second. Fingers on the choke. But red puffs his way to the top without the need for extra oxygen. Past Pines Lake school. Then down the hill. This part could get tricky. Needs brakes. Real ones. There's a turn at the bottom. Oh boy, and there are cars parked on either side for someone's barbeque. This'll really make it interesting. Obstacle course. Well, I'm all in. Pop it into third. Head down the hill. Tap the brakes to make sure they're there. WeeeeeEEEeeeee!!! Lil' Red's tail is swingin' around like the town hussy at church, headed for a communion wafer and a sip of wine, knockin' down chairs on both sides of the aisle . . . Whew. Made it through the gauntlet. All parked cars intact. Then a nice leisurely spin down along the park to the Vale road entrance and safety in the driveway . . . . "
Excerpt from Jim Buonocore's blog "QBaroque". I finally found some one more loquacious than I. . . . wish he had more posts on his blog.
Did you catch his mention of the turn at the bottom of the hill? It was that hill, with my sister riding shotgun, that I first realized, at age 17, that braking was a requirement to successfully navigate that corner alive. It is also the hill I got called out for in the middle of 4th grade social studies for riding without hands on the handle bars. We all rode that way?!?!?!
And one last blog called: The Pines Lake Redhead:
"Growing up in Pines Lake was truly the perfect childhood for me. I couldn’t have been happier and I have only the fondest memories. Everything in Pines Lake revolved around The Lake. The social hub was South Beach. No, not that South Beach. During the summer there was every possible activity to do outside! Swimming, diving, sailing, kayaking, canoeing, windsurfing (does anyone do that anymore?), fishing, tennis, frog & turtle catching, basketball, gossiping, picnics, parades, arts & crafts, knock-hockey (anyone know what that is?), and summer jobs. In the winter, if we were lucky, we got black ice and could ice skate, play hockey, and ice fish."
"Needless to say, I was very active. I was out the door from sun-up to sundown. In the spring and the fall we played in the woods and I would come home with leaves and twigs in my hair. When the weather got warm and The Lake wasn’t officially open yet (open season was Memorial Day to Labor Day) we would go down to The Glen. We had to climb down a rock-face wall to get down there and no, we weren’t allowed to go down there. But it was so much cooler down there in the shade! We would catch crayfish and just dangle our feet in the ice cold stream. Looking back through the eyes of motherhood, I would have killed my kids if they hadn’t fallen and broken their necks first."
"There were two drawbacks to being the Pines Lake Redhead. First, I was the Pines Lake Redhead! There were two redheaded brothers that were a few years older than me. But as far as I can remember, I was the only redheaded girl my age. I was my family’s calling card. People wouldn’t have any idea of my parents’ names but they knew that they belonged to me. I could have never have misbehaved and gotten away with it. Well, at least it forced me to keep my nose clean." Boy can I relate to this!!!!
"Then there’s the obvious problem with being a redhead and spending so much time in the sun. I may not have tanned but I sure did freckle! Not much could have been done about it though. SPF 15 didn’t even hit the shelves until I was in high school and lifeguarding. Yes, lifeguarding. I’m in my 30s now and I’ve already had one piece of skin cancer removed and several other pre-cancerous spots."
The Glen:
What's truly weird about her blog as I read through it, is that not only do we both have red hair and grew up at Pines Lake, but we're both shooting with Canon D series cameras, have migrated to Florida and ruined our skin. Things that make you go hummmmm.
Anyway, that is Katie, me and the 10TS a couple of years back. I dragged them down to the Glen since we were up that way. That's the brook and the rock face behind them. Sweet huh?
No wonder I love snooping the net.
