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LWF made an
immediate impression on us. About an hour into the trip, he
called one of the kids to the front, slapped him and made him kneel
next to him until we got to St. James School, where others joined
us.
The last year I
was there, he caused a stampede of our horses prior to an outing to
Weirs Beach, when he fired a pistol several times in the air as a
signal to the kids to board the bus. It took me quite a while to
round up all those spooked horses.
"Gas Dryer
Incident" - 1959 (REPRINT
OF ARTICLE FROM NY TIMES)
...saw Francis
forcing a boy into a large clothes dryer and briefly turning on the
gas. Other students released the victim before serious injury
had occurred.
...Francis,
brandishing a chain, seen chase a scantily-clad youth across the
snow covered grounds.
...many of
the escapees went over to the new
Laurel Crest Academy
in nearby Bristol
The State's
Attorney, John D. LaBelle, revealed to the Court (June 30, 1961
Superior Court Trial in Hartford) that Francis made his victims
remove their pants and underwear before beating them with a
hairbrush and a variety of belts and whips
On one field trip
to Hartford on a winter day, we were in a school bus with Mr.
Francis driving, when some kids threw snowballs at us. He
promptly stopped, opened the door, and ordered us to 'Go Get Them!!'
It was like a civil war battle right on the side of the road.
On another field
trip, we were running late, sitting in the bus, and Francis became
very impatient because this crippled student was still on the second
level of the main house. He had to wear braces to help him
move. Francis finally lost it. He ran to the top
of the stairs and threw the poor kid down the entire flight."
1968....I was a
sophomore in the so-called high school class of four boys. School
actually started up in Camp Leo. We stayed in the unheated cabins
with no hot water from early September until Halloween.
New
Entries
(Table of Contents Linked To Story)
My First Day
I had spent that
summer at a Boy Scout camp in Cape Cod, MA and was looking forward
to joining my friends back home. As far as I knew, I was
returning home. Instead, I was taken to the train station in
Boston and was informed of the change just before they put me on the
train to Hartford. I cried for most of the trip. When
the train arrived in Hartford, the conductor escorted me off the
train and into the custody of Leonard W. Francis.
Already quite
distraught, my first look at the man I was being turned over to
transformed my despair to fear. Francis was this great big man
with a bright red face and thick glasses that made his eyes look
like they were huge and protruding from his eye sockets. I
remember thinking he looked like some sort of space creature with
eyes on the end of short appendages. That image never left me.
The space creature ordered me to follow, turned and charged off into
the sea of people around the train platform. I had all I could
do to keep up, but he never turned to check on me. Eventually
we made it to a parking lot and a huge black station wagon. I
tumbled into the back seat, as ordered, but managed to squeak out a
protest that we had left my bag behind. Evidently this
irritated Francis because he turned around and yelled that I
wouldn't need anything from that bag. I knew when to shut up
and we rode in silence for the entire trip to the school. I
had no idea why this strange and creepy man was so angry with me.
I first arrived at
Saint James School in August of 1955, after Camp Leo had closed for
the season, but weeks before any of the other kids arrived for the
start of school. Francis first took me to the 1811 house
and he issued me my school uniforms. I was a little surprised
at the shorts; high socks, garters and Buster Brown shoes, but said
nothing. Next, he brought me to the second floor of Main
House, showed me my room and told me to change into the uniform and
then come downstairs to eat lunch. About 20 minutes later I
arrived at the dining room door to see Francis already eating.
When he spotted me, he jumped from his chair and started screaming
at me that I was in the wrong uniform and pushed me towards the
stairs. I fell down and he rushed towards me, grabbed me by
the arm and dragged me up the stairs and back to my room. He
threw the brown shorts at me and ordered me to change.
Frightened and crying, I did what he said while he watched.
When I was done, instead of lunch, he took me back to his office in
the 1811 house and ordered me to undress. Then he took me over
his knee and paddled me 25 times with a hairbrush. After I
dressed, he took me back to the Main House, issued me a push mower
and told me to mow the lawn. Then he went back to the 1811
house. I was happy to get away from him. I guess I cried
for about an hour, but eventually became interested in the mowing.
Hours later, this great big fat lady came out of Main House and told
me to come into the dining room for some milk and cookies. Her
name was Agnes Hennesey, she was the cook and was very nice.
After the treat, I went back to the mowing for a few more hours,
when Agnes called me in and told me to clean up for supper. I
didn't see Francis again until the next morning. I cried
myself to sleep that night.
The next few weeks
were filled mostly with work details. Francis was gone most of
the time and when he was around, I managed to usually avoid him.
One day, another kid showed up to take an entrance exam and I showed
him around the school. I advised him not to come to this
school, but when school opened, he showed up and was in the room
next to mine. We were friends for the three years he attended.
Agnes
Hennisey
Agnes Hennisey,
was the last cook at Merricourt and continued at Saint James for
three years.
Agnes took me
shopping with her and to a friend's house. She was very nice.
I remember that one
weekend, just before
school opened, Agnes took me for a trip to her hometown of
Torrington, CT. I will never forget that trip as half of the
city had been destroyed from flooding due to a hurricane the
previous year. The place was still a mess.
Francis'
Grand Plan
Francis' plan to
transform kids was rather simple. First, he would cut your
hair, take away all your clothes and issue the odd uniform designed
to keep us separated from the rest of society. Next, he
effectively controlled our access to the outside world and scheduled
constant activities, calculated to make us all conform to his idea
of sameness. In other words, he was trying to eliminate our
identity, break us down and rebuild us according to his own image.
Any deviation from his plan would result in very severe and
immediate punishment. The military service has been doing
exactly the same thing effectively for many years and it's a form of
brain washing. Perhaps it worked with a few kids but most of
us resisted and did whatever he wanted while he was looking, but did
what we wanted when he wasn’t. Naturally, he was unable to
carry out his plan as effectively with the day students and I don't
think any of them really understood what the rest of us were going
through.
Francis might have
been more effective with his plan if he had been more clinical about
it and didn't let his temper and perversions get in the way.
That he was allowed to continue for so many years with those two
major personality flaws is the real crime though. Lots of
responsible people knew what was going on, but did nothing to help.
Some of the teachers knew what Francis was doing and did nothing.
The kids often told their parents what was happening, but either the
parents didn't believe their own kids, or they just thought the kids
were exaggerating and making up stories. Francis was bad
enough, but the real criminals were the other members of the Leo
Foundation who never checked on him, or else knew what he was doing
and ignored it. At least two of them were priests. They
both knew exactly what Francis was doing to the kids and chose to
turn a blind eye to it. Many of the Christian Brothers at Camp
Leo also knew what was going on and kept it to themselves. Of
course, as we would later find out, the Catholic Church was quite
adept at ignoring problems and covering up perversions when it came
to little boys. I guess Saint James was no exception.
Our Isolation
Francis did his
best to isolate us from the rest of society. But, what happens
when 50, or so middle school aged boys are cut off from society?
They form their own society and start making up their own rules.
An extreme example of this can be found in the book Lord of the
Flies. Of course, we weren't completely cut off from
civilization like the boys in the book, as we had teachers, house
parents and Francis. Nevertheless, we did have our own secret
society built on our distrust of our keepers. Like the kids in
the book, we had our own rules and a very strict code of conduct
among ourselves. The two worst violations of our code were to
rat out a fellow student, or to steal from another student.
Our little sub-society had leaders, kangaroo courts and various ways
of proving ourselves to our fellow students. Hiding cigarettes
and smoking on campus was one way to prove we could defy Francis;
another was sneaking out at night to buy a hamburger at local all
night restaurants. We would also buy apple cider in season and
hide it in our closets, or under our beds. In a few weeks, the
cider would start to ferment and we would drink it to get a buzz.
In the Main House, some of the closets in our rooms had empty spaces
behind them. We would remove the wood panels and create a
secret room where we could hide things and sometimes hide ourselves.
Some kids would climb out the windows of the third floor of Main
House and smoke on the roof; others would sneak away to the far end
of the athletic field to smoke.
No Care
Packages
One of Francis;
rules, designed to keep us isolated, was that we could not receive
any packages from home. We were allowed letters, but the
packages that some kid’s parents sent them were returned. One
kid found a way to get his "care packages" from home smuggled in.
I'm not sure, but he may have made a deal with a day student.
In any event, he always had all kinds of food that his grandmother
sent him and shared it with the others for acceptance. The
item that was smuggled in the most, however, was long pants.
Kids would hide their smuggled long pants and change at the bus or
train station when they went home. The long pants also came in
handy when we snuck out at night. Even I had a pair of
smuggled long pants, before Francis issued me long pants for my
dress uniform. I don't exactly remember how I got them, but I
think some kid who was not returning to school gave them to me.
"Lights Out"
Rule
Being caught
talking after "lights out" was a punishable offence at both Camp Leo
and Saint James. At Camp Leo, some of the camper's cabins were
equipped with two-way intercoms, which the Brothers would listen to
at night to catch the offenders. Camp Leo offenders would be given a
stern talking to by the Brothers and warned not to do it again. At
Saint James, however, a house parent would quietly sneak around
listening for students breaking the silence and write demerits which
could end up in a call to the office for a spanking. Quite often,
the houseparent wouldn't know who was talking, resulting in the
wrong person, or perhaps everyone in that room getting a demerit.
Once, on an overnight trip, Francis had arranged for all the kids to
stay the night in a barracks. During dinner, Francis was very
pleasant and even arranged for a special ice-cream treat and
television afterward. Then it was bedtime, followed by "lights out".
A few minutes after "lights out", when it appeared that Francis had
left the room, some of the little kids started whispering and
laughing. We all knew how strongly Francis felt about breaking this
rule so one of the older kids warned the little ones to stop.
Unfortunately, this caused them to laugh even more. Suddenly,
Francis appeared as if from nowhere. Without saying a word he
grabbed one of the kids, picked him up and threw him in the air,
right over two beds. The kid slammed into the wall and immediately
slumped down to the floor. Then Francis simply turned and walked out
of the barracks. Not a word had been uttered but everyone got the
message loud and clear. No one dared move, even a muscle, for the
rest of the night. I know the abused kid was most certainly sore and
bruised, but I don't remember that his injuries were serious enough
to require medical attention. It's a wonder he wasn't killed though.
"Troubled Kids"
Francis used to
tell parents that he was able to turn around any "troubled" boy
using his special techniques and discipline. That was such a
crock, but parents usually fell for it. I know of no one who
benefited from his plan to turn around troubled kids. The
truth of the matter was that the so called “troubled” kids continued
their behavior problems until they were eventually kicked out, or
their parents finally withdrew them from school. Furthermore,
there were very few “troubled” kids when I was there. There
were a few kids from broken families but most of the boarders were
good kids from well-to-do homes with parents who were just too busy
to take care of them. We were definitely not behavior problems
before we attended that school, but many of us did become behavioral
problems while we were there. Even so, the problems usually
disappeared after we left. That’s because we were really
normal kids in a very abnormal situation. The real “troubled”
person and behavioral problem at the school was Leonard W. Francis.
Never Get
Francis Mad!
The only real rule
that we knew was never to get Francis mad. If you did, you
could expect instant physical punishment on the spot like a slap on
the face, or punch in the stomach. Later on, you would be
called to the office for his usual punishment, where you were forced
to remove all your clothes and had to lay face down on Francis' lap,
while he hit you 25 times with his hair brush, or a switch. At
the time, spanking with a hairbrush, or switch were perfectly
acceptable methods of discipline and I’m sure most parents agreed
with it at the time. However, I'm sure none of the parents
knew about the naked part, nor did they know that Francis got an
erection every time he spanked us that way, (you can't lay naked in
a man's lap and not notice if he got a hard on). If he was
especially angry, he used a riding whip and would have you stand in
the corner naked so you couldn’t get away from him. I
seriously doubt that this would be an acceptable form of punishment
for children, even back then.
Our Own
Radio Station!
At Saint James, we
built a small AM radio transmitter which would only transmit a few
blocks in all directions. Out tests indicated it would reach around
the entire school, so we formed our own pirate radio station, WSJS.
We all took turns as DJs, made up commercials for the school canteen
and advertised upcoming school events. For music, we played rock and
roll which we ripped off and recorded from WPOP in Hartford. We
played the music as if it was our own. Of course all of this was
very illegal and Francis put an end to it as soon as he found out.
We were on the air about two weeks.
The
Demerit System
There was a system
in place where any of the staff could write a disciplinary referral
and send it to the office. The referral was called a demerit.
Any student who got five demerits in a week was called to the office
and subjected to whatever punishment deemed necessary by LWF.
(Whatever punishment you got always involved taking off all your
clothes.) Many times it didn’t even take five demerits for a
trip to the office. We got demerits for just about everything.
Not looking at the teacher when spoken to, not being able to answer
questions in class, not finishing homework, not doing a job right,
or anything at all that a teacher didn't like. Most of the
time we didn't even know when we got a demerit and since they were
not reviewed, we never knew what we did wrong so we could modify our
behavior and avoid the demerit next time. Most teachers didn't
write demerits, but a few took great pleasure in writing them.
Our housemother was, by far, the worst. She went out of her
way to write them, especially if she didn't like you and, as far as
we could tell, she didn't like anyone.
Fond
Memories
Some of the
many educational field trips we took were great. One memorable trip
was to the Coast Guard Academy at New London and a tour of a
submarine. We also went to a radio station and I got to be
interviewed on the air. I remember a trip to a big bank where we got
to move the 10 ton vault door with just one finger, hold a
$10,000.00 bill and learned all kinds of things about our monetary
system. There was another trip to a large bakery and we learned how
bread was baked, wrapped and delivered to all the grocery stores in
the state. Another time we went to a helicopter manufacturing plant.
One of our best trips at Saint James, however, was to a Peter Paul
Chocolate factory. At Camp Leo we went to plays and woodwind
concerts and I enjoyed them all. We also took day trips to amusement
parks and fairs. Naturally, we had many more field trips, but those
are the ones that stood out. Both the camp and the school also had
over night trips to Bermuda, Williamsburg, Washington, Quebec and
Skyline Drive. The friendships with fellow students that I made
there were great too. Under different circumstances we probably
would have continued contact, like I've done with some high school
buddies but our years there were something most of us wanted to
forget. Just the same, even with the bad experiences, Saint James
and Camp Leo afforded me great opportunities for education that I
otherwise never would have had.
I am reminded of
the flower garden with a cement bench up near 1811 House where I had
my first kiss with my first true love. I had the great fortune
to meet a young girl from New Britain, Kathy, while attending a
birthday party for one of the school’s day students. We were
both 12 years old and hit it off right away. Thanks to my day
student friend, we saw each other a few more times. Otherwise,
I would call her just about every night from the pay phone at Main
House. It was puppy love for sure. About this time,
Francis decided we'd have a dance in the gym under the school
building and bussed in girls from a nearby all girls school. I
was invited Kathy and we had a wonderful time. In the dark, we
slipped away from the dance and went for a walk up the school road
towards the 1811 House, sat in the moonlight on the bench in the
flower garden and talked. After a while, we stopped talking
and awkwardly leaned towards each other. We kissed a few times
and then walked back to the dance. It was all so innocent and
nice. Kathy and I had a few more dates and then her family
moved out of state. We wrote back and forth several times, but
by summer neither of us wrote again. I never saw her again,
but I'll never forget that night.
Prison Camp
In some respects,
Saint James was like a prison camp. Perhaps no where near as
severe, but we were trapped nonetheless and no one believed us or
even cared that we were at the mercy of this madman. Francis
could and did anything he wanted, because no one supervised him or
actually reviewed what was happening at the school or camp. As
a result, there were no consequences to anything he did no matter
how outrageous.
Haircuts
The strange
uniform we were forced to wear evidently was not quite humiliating
enough as far as Francis was concerned. In order to make us look
totally bizarre, he also shaved our heads in what could be described
as a military style, buzz-cut. Between our weird clothes and our
almost bald heads, we must have looked like prisoners who had just
escaped from a chain gang. We hated the haircuts so much that
occasionally some kid would try to disappear when haircut day came.
But Francis would always spot them in a day or two, punish them and
personally shave their head much more severe than the barber ever
would.
Once, a few days
after our haircut, one of the older kids came to my room and wanted
me to trim his hair. He had skipped the school haircut and had so
far successfully avoided detection. His plan was to have his hair
trimmed and Francis might not notice before he went home for a
holiday. Then, when he went home, he would be able to look fairly
normal. I admitted to him that I really couldn’t cut hair, but he
pointed out that I had told everyone that my father was a barber.
That was true, but what I had neglected to add was that I had never
lived with my father. The kid insisted that I do it anyway. That
day, we all learned a valuable lesson: Haircutting skills are not
inherited; they really had to be learned. The poor kid looked so
bad that when Francis saw him, he decided not to cut his hair, but
to let him go home with it that way. When the kid returned from the
holiday, his head was shaved. His barber told him his haircut was
so bad that the only way to fix it was to shave it. I was never
asked to cut hair again.
The Generator
As he was always
such a self-righteous bully, I have always enjoyed stories where
Leonard Francis was embarrassed, made a mistake or was proven wrong.
Here’s an example where Lenny had a good idea, but it backfired and
cost the school a lot of money. I’m sure some of you remember
the big blackout in the Northeast some time around 1965, or 1966?
This was the very first of the big electrical blackouts in this
country. It affected most of the Mid-Atlantic States and just
about all of New England. People were stuck in elevators for
days and in New York City, all the evening commuters had to walk out
of the subway tunnels when the trains stopped working.
Millions of people were inconvenienced in many ways. I, myself
had a job interview that evening conducted entirely in the dark.
I was hired without even been seen. (They made a movie about
this blackout called, Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?)
This is a story about Lenny and the great blackout.
As we all know,
LWF was an engineer and believed in the Boy Scout Motto, “Always be
prepared”. As a result, in the late fifties he bought a big
electrical generator that would be able to supply electricity to the
entire school. I was a student at Saint James School at that
time and helped several of my fellow students carry it down the
bulkhead stairs into the basement of Main House. It was huge
and we had to take a few things apart in order for the generator to
actually slide through the bulkhead. (I actually broke a
finger that day on that generator and because the finger was never
set, it’s been crooked ever since.) Evidently, Francis had
warned some local official about possible electrical outages, but no
one in the community would take him seriously. I guess he
wanted the town to install their own generator as a backup to the
electric company. He told the students that he bought the
generator so “the lights would never go out at Saint James School”.
I’m sure he longed for the day he could tell that official “I told
you so”.
There’s not a
doubt in my mind that he expected this to be a tribute to his
foresight and engineering skills and I must admit that I was
impressed at the time. Unfortunately, when the blackout
actually hit the school, according to a former teacher at Saint
James who was there from 1965 – 1969, Francis was unable to get the
generator started. How embarrassing that must have been for him.
(I wish I had been there to witness it, but I left the school in
1959) Evidently Lenny worked day and night for four days on
that generator until he finally got it working; 10 minutes before
the power from the electric company came back on. According to the
teacher, LWF was the laughing stock of the school and the community.
The mistake Francis made was not running the generator at least once
a year and replacing the old diesel fuel with new. It seems
that all petroleum products break down over time and machinery needs
to be run periodically to keep it in good working order. I
guess Francis thought the generator would always be ready whenever
he wanted to fire it up and simply forgot about regular maintenance.
Naturally, that
blackout would have justified his having bought such an expensive
piece of equipment several years earlier. Instead, it proved
to be a personal embarrassment and a waste of money for the school
as it was not there for them when it was needed.
Dungarees for
Dung
We all looked odd
in our strange school uniform and we knew it. We were always
trying to figure out ways to get it changed, but whatever scheme we
thought of never worked. Although we were unquestionably
afraid of him, sometimes a student would get up enough courage to
question Francis about some aspect of the school uniform. Once
a group of boys asked Francis why we couldn’t wear blue jeans, at
least for our work details. He told them, "Dungarees were made
for the express purpose of handling dung." That really didn’t
answer the question, but I actually liked that quote and have used
it myself on a few occasions.
Lenny's Mood
Swings
Lenny was subject
to wide mood swings and we soon learned that his moods could change
in an instant. One minute he’d be buying us ice cream and the
next slap someone because he didn’t like the way the kid got on the
bus. The rules changed from minute to minute depending on his
mood. Once during an extended field trip, we had stayed
overnight and were eating breakfast just before leaving to drive
back to camp. Francis, in an unusual good mood, was laughing
and joking with some of the kids at his table. A few minutes
later, one of the littlest kids had to use the restroom before
leaving and was a bit late in getting back to the bus. Francis
abruptly shut the bus door right in the kid’s face and deliberately
drove out of the parking lot with the kid crying and running after
the bus. I know Francis saw the kid and in addition, some of
us yelled that he was being left behind, but Francis just continued
driving and left the poor kid alone, hundreds of miles from home.
I understand that the kid was able to catch a ride some hours later
from another of our group that had been on a side trip with the
station wagon. Nevertheless, think of what could have happened
to that little kid and of the unnecessary emotional stress he was
put under. That wasn’t the only time Francis left someone
behind though. He had a bad habit of not counting the kids who
got off the bus and the kids who got back on. Making it back
to the bus on time was our responsibility. If we weren’t ready
when Francis was, the bus would leave. Several times while I
was there we would be missing a kid during a trip and have to return
for him. That night the offending kid would be called to the
office for a spanking.
Beatings & Work Assignments
Every disciplinary beating we endured would be accompanied by an
assignment to a work detail the following week. The purpose of
this was to teach us the consequences of our improper behavior so
that we would not make the same mistake again. That would have
worked well if the rules didn’t change constantly. How the
rules were interpreted and what they might happen to be at the
moment, all depended on the ever-changing moods of the headmaster.
Sometimes we suspected he would interpret the rules just to give you
a work detail. You see, instead of having to pay someone to do
various jobs, Francis would simply assign some of the kids to do it.
Other than the day students, everyone was assigned to at least one
weekly work detail. Daily work details were given to the
troublemakers of his choice. We all had a time card and it had
to be punched at the time clock puncher that was kept in the school
building. Unless you had been in trouble that week, fifty
cents an hour would be credited to your account. If you had
been disciplined, or if you had simply pissed Francis off that week,
(not hard to do), you worked for free. Most of us worked for
free.
Cheap
Labor
Many of the jobs
we were given to do for our work details were quite appropriate for
young kids, such as raking leaves, weeding gardens, cleaning, or
mowing the lawn. Some of the jobs, however, were dangerous and
definitely not something that kids should have been doing,
especially unsupervised. One of those jobs involved the big
ditch that had been dug to drain standing water on the athletic
field. Francis contracted with a company to use heavy
equipment to dig a three-foot wide and six-foot deep ditch all
around the athletic field. The ditch was eventually to be
filled with rocks, or gravel and covered over with topsoil and
grass. For some reason, the ditch was dug, but wasn’t filled
up until much later. Meanwhile, every time it rained, or
sometimes just on its own, parts of the heavy clay ditch wall would
cave in. To fix this problem, Francis assigned kids to dig out
the mud and repair the damage. It was a very dirty and
dangerous job. Once, during a bad rainstorm, a group of us
were digging out the mud that had fallen into the ditch, again
unsupervised, when part of the ditch wall collapsed and one of the
other kids was actually buried. We scrambled to dig him out as
quickly as we could. Fortunately, he was only bruised and
shaken up but went right back to work as he was afraid of what
Francis would do if he went to the infirmary. After that, we
all paid more attention to the ever collapsing walls of the big
ditch.
The Swimming Pool
A
job that we shouldn’t have been doing unsupervised involved the
construction of the swimming pool. Other than digging the
initial hole and pouring the cement, the kids did all the work.
We built the plywood frames and set the steel rods in place that
were meant to reinforce the cement after it was poured. Once,
one of the older kids was almost electrocuted when he was using some
kind of power tool and standing in a puddle of water. Another
kid knocked the tool out of his hand, saving his life, but the tool
fell and broke. When Francis eventually showed up and saw the
broken tool, he got angry, blamed the kid who had gotten the shock
and slapped him several times. Obviously, he had no concern
whatsoever about the fact that the kid almost got killed.
Thinking about all the things we were forced to do that were unsafe,
it's a wonder no one ever really did get killed.
Henry & Dorothy
Ball
Two people from
Camp Leo and Saint James that I will never forget were Henry and
Dorothy Ball. The Balls were a black couple from Bermuda. They
worked for one of the schools on that island, but had been recruited
to work at Camp Leo during the summer as cooks. They did such a good
job at Camp Leo, that when Agnes Hennessey, the first cook at Saint
James quit, the Balls came to work at Saint James. At Saint James,
Mr. Ball was our janitor and handyman, while Mrs. Ball was the
school's cook: their daughter, Susie, was a student. They were the
most pleasant and friendly couple I've ever met and,
because they loved children so much, they became our substitute
parents. Mrs. Ball knew the name of every single student and, if she
ever realized that you were having a problem, she would often give
you sound advice as you went through her food line. Except for
dessert, each student served himself. Mrs. Ball was very proud of
her desserts, so she served them herself. It also gave her the
opportunity to speak to each student as he went past. She was a
great cook and a good friend. We always looked forward to her meals
and especially her desserts.
Mr. Ball always seemed to have plenty of time to talk to the kids
about their problems while he worked. Sometimes he would let us help
him and it was a special treat when he let us operate the floor
buffer. He would get us all laughing when he'd let one of the bigger
kids try it and watch them lose control. Then he'd call the littlest
kid available to demonstrate to the big kid how easy it was. There
was a trick to using a floor buffer and, unless you knew it, no
matter how strong you were, you could not control it. It would just
spin you around. If you knew the trick to operating it, however,
even the smallest student could control it. Sadly, Mr. Ball died
shortly after I left the school. I believe that Mrs. Ball and Susie
continued on until the school closed. Without a doubt, the Balls
made our lives at that depressing place a little easier to tolerate.
Boy Scout Troop 60
The Boy Scout
Council called on several of the troops in our area to help in a
search exercise. The call went out on a Saturday, so troops
from all over the area, including ours, volunteered to participate.
First we were trained in proper search procedures. Next, we
were told a small Air Force training rocket had gone down somewhere
near this area and the government had asked for the Boy Scouts to
help find it. This was the height of the Cold War, so we were
all thrilled to be able to help our country. Using the
procedures we had just learned, we were to spread out and search the
woods for the rocket. We were warned that the rocket might not
be safe, so if we spotted it, don’t touch it or get anywhere near
it, just call for help. After about two hours of searching,
someone from our troop spotted the rocket and we called for help.
When the Scout leaders arrived, we discovered that the rocket was
not real and was actually made out of painted cardboard.
However, we were now properly trained in search methods and if, for
instance, someone got lost in the woods, we would be able to help
find them. Because we had discovered the rocket, Troop 60 was
allowed to take it back to the school where it was hung and
displayed in the 1811 house.
One year the Eastern States Exposition
management made a deal with several of the local Boy Scout Troops.
In exchange for free admission, the Boy Scouts agreed to take turns
patrolling the fence surrounding the fair and discourage anyone from
jumping it. Evidently this had been a problem in the past and
this year was no exception. We were all quite surprised at the
number of kids who attempted to sneak in. Most turned and ran
when they saw us, but a few thought they would try anyway. But
even the tough guys left when they saw how many we were. We
did have several confrontations that day, but no fights. We
only had to call security twice to back us up. Once our shift
was over, we got to wander all over the fair and ride the rides.
I particularly like all the agricultural animal competitions and the
science exhibits. I even got to pet one of the famous
Budweiser Clydesdale horses. They were huge.
I will never
forget the year we went on a Scout Jamboree to the Adirondacks in
the middle of the winter. The temperature at night got
down to twenty below zero and the cabin we were assigned to had no
heat or fireplace. Even so, our mummy type sleeping bags kept
us plenty warm. But that didn’t stop the older kids from
sending the new kids to the other scout troops for “a bucket of
steam”. They even persuaded several tenderfoots to get up at
5am for the “Snipe hunt”.
Sometimes, but not
often, you could do something to upset Francis without getting into
trouble. When the school started Boy Scout Troup 60, for our first
meeting Francis had invited a few leaders from the local Scout
District, as well as the local newspaper to participate. The first
order of business was the organizing and naming of patrols. All the
students in the school were divided by Francis into several patrols
and each patrol had to come up with a unique and appropriate name.
Most of the patrols quickly chose names like Bear, Wolf and Eagle.
Some in our patrol, (like myself), enjoyed being different and we
had difficulty agreeing on a name. In fact, we were the very last
patrol to pick a name, mainly because of a difference of opinion
between a normal name and an unusual name. Unusual won out. It was
the very beginning of the space era and, up until that point, Russia
had been the only country to successfully launch an artificial
satellite. The satellite was called Sputnik and that's what we
wanted to call our patrol. We knew full well that the satellite was
Russian and Russia was beating us in the space race. In fact, we
were a little concerned that choosing that name might be considered
unpatriotic and we might not be allowed to use it. (In a way, our
choosing that name was really a minor protest to our being forced to
be Boy Scouts against our will.) I was chosen by the patrol to
announce our decision to Francis, since that name had been mainly my
idea. I must confess that I was more than a little nervous but I
marched right up to the front and announced the name of our patrol
to Francis and the district leaders, with a representative of the
New Britain Herald and his photographer looking on. Francis turned
very red and glanced in the direction of the district leaders. When
he returned his attention to me, I noticed his hands were trembling
slightly. That and the red face made me expect an explosion.
Instead, Francis just wrote the name down on the roster and I
returned to my patrol. From there on, we were known as the Sputnik
Patrol.
Parades
During the
mid-fifties, Saint James marched in two parades, much to the
embarrassment of the students. In particular, I remember the Saint
Patrick's Day Parade in New Haven where we all froze in our dress
blue shorts. We had a drum corps leading and the rest of us followed
with cat calls and whistles from the crowd all the way. It was so
humiliating and we all hated it. Many months before, the students
who were to play the drums for the parade were made to practice
constantly in order to insure they would not make any mistakes.
Also, every day after school, Francis required marching and drilling
for the entire student body. If we didn't do it to his satisfaction,
we'd have to do it in the dark and all weekend long. If he was in a
bad mood, offending students would be called to the office and
switched as a means of helping them remember their left from their
right. Francis demanded that our performance would be perfect. The
day of the actual parade, I had thoughts of intentionally getting
out of step for the parade just to embarrass Francis, but thought
better of it. One smaller kid did screw up briefly in the beginning
of the parade and Francis called him to the office that night to be
paddled.
The Snowball
Incident
One Sunday, in the
middle of the winter, I believe we were returning from Mass at Saint
Paul's in Kensington. After the service, some of the local kids
began teasing us about our "cute little bare legs" and throwing
snowballs at us as we boarded the bus. We were never allowed to
react to such nonsense and we didn't, even though several of us got
pelted pretty good. Instead, we simply got on the bus and calmly
watched as the locals bombed it with their snowballs. Finally,
Francis came out of the church and walked towards the bus. A few of
the local kids had the audacity to throw their snowballs at Francis
and actually hit him a few times. Red faced and obviously very
angry, he opened the door of the bus and ordered us to get them. We
couldn't get off the bus fast enough. Imagine 50 kids running at top
speed out of the bus, making snowballs and throwing them at the
locals. Being outnumbered even before the bus was empty, the townies
ran away. We were happy to have finally been able to react to the
hazing and I guess Francis felt vindicated. In any event, he laughed
with us and later brought the bus to a local dairy bar where he
treated the whole school to ice cream.
School Pets
We weren't allowed
to have pets at Saint James, but someone managed to smuggle in a few
white rats and sold them to some students. Naturally, if Francis had
known he would have destroyed the rats and paddled us. (Of course,
that didn't stop us. We often did things we knew Francis wouldn't
like.) They were cute little things with their snow white coats and
their little red eyes. I kept mine in a dresser drawer whenever I
wasn't in my room, but would let him run around when I was there. My
rat was very friendly, but some of the other rats didn't like to be
bothered much and would sometimes bite. My rat and I would play
together for hours at a time. One day I came back to my room and my
little white rat wasn't there. Evidently he had escaped because he
was hungry and I guess I had left the drawer open a bit. I looked
all over my room and the entire second floor of Main House, but the
rat was nowhere to be found. About a week later, I was laying on my
bed reading something before breakfast when I heard this blood
curdling scream from the kitchen downstairs. The scream was from our
cook, Agnes Hennessey. As I looked over the second floor banister, I
could see big fat Agnes chasing my poor little rat with a broom and
shouting "get out of my kitchen you #%&*#@ rat". I ran down the
stairs to watch. She chased that rat all around the hallway trying
to swat it with her broom. Just as it appeared she had it cornered
and was about to swat it the last time a student walked in the back
door and the rat ran out. No one would admit to owning the rat or
bringing it into the school even though we were all questioned by
the assistant headmaster. I don't know what happened to the other
rats, but they all disappeared shortly after that incident.
Winter
Uniforms
It was always a
shock when new students learned about the strange uniform we had to
wear, but the real shock came when they discovered our winter
uniform. The only good part of our winter uniform was the
brown leather bomber style jacket. These jackets were
fashioned after the jackets worn by the World War II Air Force
Pilots, but with a fur collar. The jackets, at least, were
cool. Unfortunately, the rest of the outfit looked like
something that easily could have been American Revolutionary War
surplus. White shirt, tie, brown knee high stockings with
garters, high cut leather boots and brown corduroy knickers.
That’s right, I said knickers: Knickers were very tight pants
that followed the contour of the legs and ended just below the knee,
with laces on the side to make them almost skin tight. They
were a cross between tights and riding pants; something you might
see an eighteenth century English Peasant wearing. Knickers
were so out of style that we used to joke that Paul Revere was
probably the last American to wear them. The winter uniform
was definitely the most embarrassing of all.
Our winter uniform
wasn’t just designed to embarrass us; we were convinced it was also
meant to torture us. The specific instrument of torture was
the high cut boots. These boots were similar to the ones worn
by a Nazis SS officer and just about as diabolical. They were
laced from just above the toes, almost to the knee with thick,
leather laces. Francis insisted that the boots be laced as
tight as humanly possible and then some. The boot cuts had to
be exactly parallel in the front or you could very well be sent to
the office for discipline. In order to get the boots laced
tight enough, we crafted hand made hooks out of pieces of cut broom
handles and very large bent nails. This hook allowed us to
pull the laces much tighter than was possible by hand. The
boots also had to be highly polished every day. Any scuffmarks
at all would also warrant a trip to the office. It was not
uncommon for students to spend an hour every night polishing and
shining their boots. The boots were put on and laced very
tightly before breakfast and were not removed until bedtime.
This meant our feet would sweat profusely for at least 12 hours
every single day. Daily sweating feet and leather boots,
coupled with common shower areas, which were not properly cleaned or
disinfected, spelled extremely bad cases of Athlete’s Foot.
Every winter we all had extremely itchy feet with painful splitting
between the toes and wounds that had a disgusting discharge.
Some kids had Athlete’s Foot so bad they had difficulty walking.
The school simply ignored the problem, but when the kids went home
for a holiday visit, their parents usually treated and cured them,
only to have them come back to get infected again.
The Ice Skating
Rink
During the coldest of the winter months at Saint James, we would
often turn part of the athletic field into an ice skating rink.
This was accomplished entirely by the students, who would spend days
spraying the designated area with the fire hose from the school
building. During the day and all through the night we took turns
putting down layer upon layer of ice. We would spray for an hour
and then let it turn to ice for an hour. Each shift would show up
to take over for the previous and at night; we took turns sleeping
in the gym until it was time for our team to take over the spraying
duties for an hour, or so. The end result was one of the nicest
skating rinks in the Berlin area. On several Saturdays, Francis
invited a nearby all girls school to our campus for a skating
party. On these occasions we would have a roaring fire, not far
from the rink, where the school provided hot cocoa, marshmallows and
hotdogs. As I remember, we even had music to skate by, thanks to a
tape player and amplifier that Francis set up outside of the school
building. Francis rarely showed up for these events, (for which we
were very grateful), and left the chaperoning to members of the
staff. As a result, we could all relax and enjoy ourselves.
Although Francis graciously allowed the town’s residents free access
to our skating rink, not many of the locals in the area took
advantage of it. Even so, we could usually count on at least a few
of the local teenage girls to show up after school. A couple of the
girls who came skating were already dating some of the older
students, but several of the other girls were simply curious about
the all boys’ school and came by to meet us. During my last winter
at the school, I was lucky enough to hit it off with a local girl my
age and we spent almost every day skating, hand in hand and talking
about all the things that ninth grade teenagers like to talk about.
Thinking back, I’m sure we looked ridiculous in our knickers, knee
stockings, garters and bomber jackets, but right then and there, no
one was bothered by the clothing because we were all having such a
pleasant time.
[Note: Based on
articles written by students in 1966 & 1967 St. James Dispatch,
the tradition of converting the tennis court for ice skating had
continued.]
Sneaking A Smoke
Main House had three floors and a basement: the first floor was
the kitchen and dining room and the second and third floors had
bathrooms and student rooms. Each room had rather large closets and
some had hollow spaces behind the wall of the closet in the back.
When I removed part of the wall in one closet on the second floor,
it opened to a space under the stairs leading up to the third floor.
That was a great hiding place, where some of us smoked cigarettes a
few times until we discovered it could be smelled in the hallway.
The Candy Store
The forbidden
candy store was just a minute's walk from SJ - making it so easy for
us to sneak off campus and go there. Francis did not like us
eating candy or junk food. He use to harangue us about tooth
decay and poor nutritional value. If THAT was the case, then
how come we could buy that stuff at the SJ and CL canteens? I
think the real reason was that Francis didn't want the store making
money from SJ kids when he could sell it on campus and pocket the
profits himself - resulting in his idiotic St. James play money!
St.
James' Money
Francis
opened the Canteen in "D" house to stop the students from
spending their money at the local candy store. Problem was, even
after the Canteen opened we still went to the candy store because
the Canteen had very limited hours, the prices were higher and it
didn't have a very good selection.
Francis
solved that problem by printing up Saint James Money and by giving
allowances and pay only in that currency. It was really just another
way Francis used to control and isolate us from the rest of the
world.
When the
Saint James bills were first issued, considering his ego, we were
all surprised that the bills didn't have Francis' picture on them.
Some kids had their parents send them US currency in the mail and
would sell them to other kids. The exchange rate was 2 Saint James
Dollars for 1 US Dollar. Then, when it was time to go home, the kids
would trade their Saint James money back to the school on a 1 to 1
basis.
The Motor
Bike
Leonard Francis
was definitely subject to mood swings. In his case, however,
instead of swinging from positive to negative, Francis would only go
from neutral to negative. I don’t ever remember seeing him in what
I would call a good mood. Occasionally though, he would do
something completely out of character and surprise us.
One Saturday
morning Francis arrived on campus as he usually did to supervise our
weekly work details. Instead of walking down the hill to personally
inspect our work, he called two of the older students up to his
office in the 1811 House. Naturally, the rest of us figured Francis
was in his usual bad mood and the kids he sent for would be getting
either the switch, or the whip because he didn’t like the was they
looked at him as he drove past, or for some minor offence like their
knee socks were turned wrong. About 30 minutes later one of the
boys came riding down the hill on a brand new motorbike. Turning
around near the Hudson Street entrance to the school, he raced past
us again and back up the hill without saying a word. A few minutes
later, the other boy did the same but waved for us to follow him.
We all ran up the hill and found the two boys in front of the bus
garage near the 1811 House with the new motorbike.
The boys
explained that Francis had just bought the bike for the school and
that we could take turns riding it after we finished our work.
Oddly, there was no inspection that day so we all rushed to finish
and then lined up to take turns riding the motorbike. We raced down
the hill, around the curve at the barn and finally the straight run
to Hudson Street. Then we’d turn around and race all the way back
to Worthington Ridge. All that day we took turns riding that
motorbike and never once saw Francis, as he worked in his office the
entire time.
The
"Flxible" Bus
The St. James bus
was a late '40s Flxible manufactured by an Ohio company that built
buses, motorcycle sidecars, limousines, and motor coaches from 1912
until they went out of business in 1995. As I recall, the SJ Flxible
was dark blue with a white top.
We traveled in it
a lot, back and forth to Camp Leo and for many St. James trips. The
Flxible was a well-built, sturdy, comfortable bus with leather seats
and plenty of leg room. The problem with the SJ bus was that
Francis overloaded it. His rule was '3 to a seat', for seats that
were only designed for two people -- very dangerous, as you can
imagine. If there'd been a crash, we kids would have been thrown
around like rag dolls.
The "Jones"
Mansion
The Charles T.
Jones mansion, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Jones (and not SJ) was
about a quarter-mile south of Saint James. It was an enormous
Tudor-style mansion with at least 30 rooms. There were working
fireplaces all over the place. The rec room with a bar and color TV,
had one of the first color TV's we had ever seen! Mrs. Jones
was Den Mother for the SJ Cub Scout Den 4 and we met in their rec
room twice a month. Mr. & Mrs. Jones' eldest son, Bill, was a
day student at SJ. He was in the same grade as my brother and
I and was also a member of the Den. As I recall, we always had
a good time at the Jones house. There was plenty of room in the
carriage house in which to work on our Cub Scout Den projects.
We bowled a lot of games on those two alleys, and played lots of
pool on their huge British-size table. It was a welcome break
from SJ and Francis, even for us day students.
Mr. & Mrs. Jones
were very nice people who really liked SJ kids, and opened their
home to them on many occasions. However; they also thought that LWF
could walk on water, so we had to be careful what we said around
them, even though they were not like Francis in any way, and they
never came on as being "spies". If they had any knowledge of what
was going on at SJ, they kept it to themselves.
The Jones family no longer own the property. Sold back in the
late 70's/early 80's, it is now a part of the Berlin Historic
District1 .
1
The Berlin
Historic District takes up most of Worthington Ridge for about a
mile - from the old Meeting House to where Worthington Ridge meets
the Berlin Turnpike. St. James is right in the middle.
St. James Runaways
I suppose there
could have been a few students at Saint James who were happy with
their lives at the school but if there were, they never expressed
that opinion to me. We all complained to our parents and anyone
else who would listen, but the abuse we suffered was just too
bizarre and outrageous to be believed. As a result, some kids
talked about running away, but no one actually did until the fourth
year after the school opened. Then one day, two students turned up
missing. No one actually knew what happened, they were just gone.
Soon, rumors began spreading that they had run away and, after a
week, they became the heroes of the student body. Just when we
began to think that they had actually gotten away with it, one of
the kids returned. He told us all about the escape and how his
parents made him come back to finish the year: but that they had
agreed he would go to another school next year. The other boy never
came back.
Because of the
success of the first runaway, some of us started making plans to do
the same. Again, there was lots of talk, but everyone was just too
afraid to actually do anything. That is until the spring of the
following year. Like everyone else, my friend and I were afraid,
but by April we decided we had to run. On the chosen day, we
finished our classes and simply walked off the campus. No one saw
us and we were counting on the house mother not to make a bed check
later that night. We changed our clothes at the bus station and by
evening our bus rolled into Boston. We had made arrangements to
stay in a nearby town with my friend’s cousin, who would let us stay
as long as we wanted. That’s when things started to go wrong.
Arriving
at the cousin’s house, no one was home and the neighbor’s dogs were
barking like crazy, so we decided to sleep on the street and check
on the cousin in the morning. Unfortunately by midnight, the
temperature began to drop and it started to snow. My friend wanted
to tough it out, but I decided to flag down a police car and give
myself up. I was taken to the station and they called the school
around 2am. Without even checking, the housemother said none of the
students were missing. By 6am, she frantically called back to say
they were, indeed missing some students. Later I appeared before
the judge, was declared a “Juvenile Delinquent” and was sent to a
reform school. That night in the reform school, I discovered my
roommate was my friend’s cousin whose house we had run to. Later
that week Francis came to get me. By that time my friend had also
been caught so Francis picked him up and the two of us rode in
silence to Connecticut. We arrived at dinner time and when we
walked into the cafeteria, the students began to applaud us until
they spotted Francis. Although I didn’t think our escape had been
successful at the time, my friend’s parents withdrew him from school
at the end of the term and I got kicked out later that summer. I
can’t help but wonder if our success led to more runaways. I
certainly hope so
Drugs, Smoking, &
Drinnking
Most of the
illegal drugs that plague our schools today were practically unknown
when I attended the camp and school. If they had been available,
however, I believe many of the kids would have been open to the idea
and more than ready to try them. Without a doubt, it would have
been easy for some of us to become junkies. Considering that
Francis mostly ignored the problems we had with smoking and drinking
in my day, I can’t help but wonder how he dealt with hard drugs when
they eventually did become a problem.
Smoking was a
big problem both at the school and camp and drinking was slowly
becoming another one. Of course back then, adults considered
smoking to be acceptable and even desirable. The ads were
everywhere: on posters, in magazines, on TV and just about everyone
in the movies, who we looked up to, smoked also. In some cases it
was even considered sexy to smoke. Smoking was almost a rite of
passage to becoming an adult and we all felt pressure from our
society to do it. Smoking was also against the rules at both the
school and the camp, even though many of the staff at both places
smoked. Francis didn’t smoke himself and, to my knowledge, he
didn’t drink either. He also taught us about the evils of smoking
and drinking in his science classes. Although he may have been
ahead of his time in that respect, it also gave us another
opportunity to secretly defy him. But if that wasn’t enough, we
also had peer pressure from the older kids to start smoking. It was
somewhat of an honor to be offered your first cigarette from an
older boy, but it was also something he could use against you. If
you squealed on him for something he did, he could get you back by
telling Francis you smoked. In our little sub society, no one ever
told on anyone.
It was easy to
get cigarettes as we could buy them in dispensing machines
everywhere. Some of us would even sneak out at night to buy them at
a local diner. Others brought cartons of them from home and sold
them for a tidy profit. Drinking, however, was much more difficult
for us as you had to be 21 years old to drink in Connecticut, but
that didn’t stop us. It did slow us down though. In the fall was
when we did most of our drinking. We’d buy natural apple cider and
hide it in secret compartments in our closets until it fermented
into hard cider. Then we’d drink the stuff until we passed out.
One time, a boy made up some kind of concoction, aged it and told us
it was homemade beer. The stuff was awful and got us all sick.
Nevertheless, he made at least 2 more batches of it before the end
of the school year. I wouldn’t drink any more because I was afraid
of being poisoned, but some kids said the other batches were good.
To my knowledge, no one was ever caught or punished for either
smoking, or drinking.
Perhaps the
most dangerous thing we did was when someone discovered it was
possible to get high by strangling yourself until you passed out.
Once you passed out, your hands relaxed and your body automatically
started to breathe again; thus preventing death. It was a very
strange sensation when you regained consciousness though. Some kids
thought it was great, but it frightened me. A few kids liked it and
would do it occasionally, but this one kid did it all the time over
and over. Every time you saw him he was strangling himself and
passing out. He absolutely loved it, but I doubt that it did him
any good and probably killed many of his brain cells.
His Obsessions
The era in
which I grew up allowed various kinds of physical punishment in
order to discipline children. In fact, spankings were not only
allowed, but actually encouraged by most of the notable experts on
child rearing at the time. In this respect, Francis’ stated views
on the control and discipline of his students, although somewhat
extreme were, at least on the surface, in compliance with the
accepted beliefs of the day. Unfortunately, Lenny’s actual
punishment sometimes went beyond his stated views on discipline.
Because of his bad temper and explosive personality, Francis was
subject to tirades and outbursts that often led to beatings, rather
than punishment. Work was acceptable as punishment back then also,
but at Saint James, work details often entailed unsupervised jobs
which were dangerous and sometimes beyond the abilities of school
kids.
But what really
separated Francis from what even the behavioral experts at the time
considered normal, was his obsession with naked little boys.
Francis clearly liked to see nude boys as evidenced by how often we
were made to be naked around him. Every punishment involved
removing all our clothes and lying on his lap while he administered
the hairbrush, a switch or even a whip for even minor offences, such
as scuffed shoes or a twisted necktie. And for some of us, the
naked paddling was a regular weekly event, sometimes 2, or 3 times a
week. There was always a nightly parade of students trudging up to
Francis’s office for punishment. I know of one kid who got smacked
simply because Francis thought he smiled too much.
Punishment
wasn’t the only time we stripped down and paraded naked around Lenny
though. Before the school built the swimming pool, Francis would
take us to various indoor pools where swimsuits were not allowed and
he would watch us swim around naked for hours. On those occasions,
we could tell from the obvious bulge in his pants that he clearly
enjoyed watching us. Not once did he bring us to a pool where
swimsuits were required. Shower time at Saint James was another
occasion he would often show up and, in all my years at Camp Leo, I
don’t believe Francis ever once missed our Saturday showers. He
would watch as we undressed and showered. Afterward, he would
inspect each naked camper, hand them a towel and watch as they
redressed. He could easily have delegated that job to any of the
Christian Brothers at the camp, but for some reason this job always
required the personal attention of the camp director.
It was plain
to see that Francis had an explosive temper, his personality was
dark and depressed, he strived to control every aspect of his
student’s lives, he seemed to enjoy causing pain and he enjoyed
watching naked little boys. He also lived with his mother and
presumably never married. I’m glad I never discovered anything more
about him.
Religious Retreats
Both
Saint James School and Camp Leo were decidedly parochial Roman
Catholic institutions even though they weren’t owned and funded by
the church. They were owned by a private group called the Leo
Foundation, with several Catholic Priests who were board members.
As far as I know, all the students and campers were Catholics, so as
a result, we did all the traditional things a regular Catholic
school did, such as confession and Mass every week, observation of
all Holy Days, daily Mass during Lent and fish every Friday. One
year we did something I had never done before in the various
Catholic schools I had previously attended. We went on a religious
retreat.
Our
retreat lasted two and a half days and was conducted in a monastery
of which I don’t remember the name. I do remember that it was very
boring, but the food was good. We were divided into smaller groups
for study and spiritual readings, but each of us had a private room
for prayer, meditation, reading and sleep. The monks of this order
had taken a vow of silence, but several of them were allowed to
speak in order to instruct us, (I must confess that some of us tried
to make the monks talk, but they never did). No TV or radio and
meals were eaten in silence. Lessons and readings were followed by
written tests. If you failed the test, you would have to redo the
work, so we all did it right the first time. When other activities
weren’t planned, we went to our rooms to pray, meditate and read the
religious material provided. We spent a lot of very boring time in
our room. The monks, we learned, did this and other exercises for
their entire lives. Not only did they take a vow of silence, but
also a vow of poverty and celibacy. In addition, they were required
to do other things, some of which were very painful, to remind them
of the pain that Christ suffered. I learned two things from this
retreat; First that I never wanted to go on another retreat and
second that I would never become a monk. If any of the other
students got anything out of the retreat, they didn’t share it with
me.
The Bike Hike
To me, one of the more
enjoyable activities at Saint James was what we called a “bike
hike”. A bike hike was simply a group bicycle ride with no
particular destination and no real purpose, other than to ride and
look around to see whatever you could see. We would always choose a
very rural route, not only to stay away from cars but also so we
could explore side roads and see where certain paths might lead us.
Biking up a big hill was sometimes tough, but you always knew that
your hard work would be rewarded at the top with a fast ride down
the other side, the wind cooling your face and a fantastic view of
the scenery. Sometimes you could see the green Connecticut
countryside stretching out on all sides for miles. One of the best
feelings you got from a bike hike though, was freedom. Back at the
school we were always confined: to the school property, the bus or
the church. That and the oppression we felt from Francis made the
school seem like a prison. Bike hikes made us feel free as birds,
if only for a short time.
Of course, in order to go on
a bike hike, you had to have a bike. Usually kids brought theirs
from home, or their parents bought one locally. Unfortunately, I
didn’t have a bike but was introduced to a fantastic way to get
one. The second floor of the barn was used mostly to store hay for
the horses. Part of the second floor though, was where all the
broken and abandoned bikes had been thrown over the years to get
them out of site. Dozens of old bikes and bicycle parts were
stacked in the corner with a box of old tools and a hand pump
nearby. With no one to guide me, it was mostly trial and error
finding the right parts to match up with the proper frame, but after
two days I had put together from all sorts of odd parts, an
acceptable two speed English Racer. With faded black paint, no
fenders and a red chain guard, mine was the sorriest looking bike of
all, but I didn’t care. Every time something on it broke, I’d find
another part and get it going again. It seemed like I was always
tinkering with it until one day one of the newer bikes got in a car
wreck and its sprocket was bent. The kid’s parents bought him a new
one and his old bike was thrown on the scrap heap over the barn.
The next day I was riding an almost new bike with a slightly rusted
sprocket that I pulled from another frame.
There was no teacher or
training course, but fixing bicycles was one of the most valuable
lessons I ever learned at Saint James. Not only did it enable me to
fix my own kid’s bikes and half the neighborhood bikes as well, but
it also led to a long career of fixing things that others thought
too complicated. Today, I’m still able to amaze my grandkids when I
make their broken bikes, or computers, as good as new.
Birth of A Colt
One
of the after school activities offered at Saint James was horseback
riding. When Camp Leo closed at the end of each summer, some of the
horses were transported to the school. Although they were all nice
horses, one in particular was the pride and joy of the school. Her
name was Tennessee and she was a Tennessee Walker. Most horses have
four gaits: walk, trot, canter and gallop. A Tennessee Walker has
five gaits: walk, walk-trot, trot, canter and gallop. The
walk-trot gait is very elegant to see and is very comfortable for
the rider. In any event, Tennessee was a very valuable horse and
one summer Francis decided to have her bred. The following spring,
Tennessee gave birth to a beautiful foal.
We
all knew that Tennessee was due to give birth any day now, but when
it actually happened, it still came as a big surprise to us. One of
the students, who lived in “D” House, was an expert with horses and
he had been keeping a close watch on Tennessee. Something didn’t
seem right that night so he caught Francis before he left for home
and asked him to look at the horse. Evidently the horse was in
labor and needed help with the delivery. Francis and the boy helped
Tennessee for hours into the night until just before the birth.
Then Francis instructed the boy to wake a few selected students and
have them come to the barn to witness the birth. I don’t know why
Francis selected me to witness this birth. I was certainly not one
of his favorites and I never had much to do with the care of the
horses. But he did select me and I’m glad he did. It’s something I
will remember my entire life.
When
I got to the barn I was surprised to see Francis with his normally
neat, clean and pressed suit all wet and slimy. He motioned us
closer. The foal’s head was already visible and within a few
minutes she was completely out. Francis cleaned the foal, while the
boy attended to the mother. After about ten minutes, the mother and
foal began to call to each other and the shaky foal made it to her
elbows a few times in an attempt to get up. After several awkward
attempts, the foal finally made it to her feet and wobbled around a
bit. All the time her mother was making soft, comforting sounds.
Then, a little more than 30 minutes old, the foal took a few
unsteady steps, found her mother’s teat and began to feed. By
daybreak she was walking around like a pro and in a few days she was
running all around the field just like she had been doing it for
years.
On The Lookout
Getting to sleep early was not always possible at Saint James, even
though we all had an early bedtime. You see, aside from being
extremely egotistical, eccentric, headstrong, quick-tempered and
perverted, Francis was also one of the worst workaholics I have ever
known. Every day he arrived at the school in time for breakfast,
and would leave to go back home to his mother after all the students
were in bed. He was never sick and was rarely away from the school
for any reason. Not only was he a bully, but also he had the
uncanny ability to sneak up on you anywhere and anytime, without
warning, day or night. As a result we lived in constant fear of him
and were only able to really relax after he had left the campus for
the night. Each of the student resident houses had its own vantage
point where the students could see when he left and, believe me; he
never left the school unobserved.
At
Main House, one of the bedrooms on the second floor was perfectly
situated to spot Francis’ car, so one of the students in that room
had the responsibility to watch for him each night and spread the
word when he was gone. The word was always spread in whispers to
avoid the patrolling houseparent, but it spread from room to room
quickly and then finally, the whole school would all be able to get
some rest.
Girl's At SJ - In The 50's
When Saint James first
began, even though it was an all boys’ boarding school, we still
managed to have regular contact with a few girls now and then. In
fact my first year, we actually had one female student. She was a
day student who was leftover from the old Merricourt School, which
Francis had bought and reopened as Saint James School. She and two
Merricourt boys were allowed to continue at the new school until
they graduated or decided to leave. Being the only girl in an all
boys’ school made her very popular, especially with the older boys.
The younger students, like myself, had little contact with her as
she was in none of our classes. After the 55 - 56 school year, she
did not return and, sadly, there were no more female students at
Saint James while I was there.
Another girl who was a
regular to our campus was Francis’ niece. She was not a student at
Saint James, but she was definitely of high school age and was
probably a sophomore or junior at her local high school. Francis
would bring her to the school, sometimes on weekends and special
events. She was very attractive and especially nice to everyone.
Naturally, she was interested in some of the older boys, but she
also made a point to joke and sometimes play around with the younger
ones. She was absolutely nothing like Francis and many of us
wondered how she could be so different and still be related to him.
In fact, she was so pleasant that it was impossible for anyone, even
for her uncle, to be unpleasant around her. Francis was always in a
much better mood when his niece was visiting the school.
Some of the students also had girlfriends from town that would
occasionally visit the school. During those times, many of us would
find some excuse to stroll by and get a good look. Naturally, this
would embarrass the couple and we would often hear about it later.
One female visitor was a senior who attended the local high school
and was no taller than 4'10". But although she was short, she was
also perfectly proportioned and very beautiful. I think she had the
nickname of "Mouse" probably because she was so tiny. From time to
time, other kids had girlfriends from town too: even me. We spent
a lot of time with them on the pay phone in Main House because the
call was only a nickel and we could talk as long as we wanted.
Sometimes the girls would call us and we’d get to save the nickel.
We’d also get to see our girlfriends occasionally in the afternoon,
weekends or when we had special events.
Sometimes the girls we met just came to our school all on their
own. When the school built the ice skating rink, several girls from
town would come everyday, not only to skate, but to flirt with the
boys as well. We also met girls when we had dances at the school.
The most memorable was the Square Dance. We all hated the square
dance lessons, but were delighted when the day of the dance came and
we discovered that Francis had invited a busload of girls to attend
from a nearby all girls school. Not all the dances were fun
though. One such dance was at the local junior high school. The
school had invited us and Francis required all students from the 6th
through the 8th grade to attend. The truth is we were
not really welcome there and I don’t think any of us did much
dancing. The local boys, however, had a grand time making fun of us
in our silly uniforms.
The Glee Club [60's]
We
had a Glee Club. I still don't know why some have this name while
other groups are called choirs. The only decent voice was John
McCarthy's; the rest of us were filling in. The music room was
across the hallway from the dining room; there was an electric organ
with foot pedals that Mr. Hollis would play and we assembled in the
main staircase. Of the most annoying aspects of these rehearsals
were the creaking planks under us. We had to stay put in our places
and the singing was mostly done for the Xmas season. With nothing
much to do otherwise this was a sort of "prestige" activity. Our
pranks illuminated those boring rehearsals like stained glass
windows in a gothic cathedral.
Discipline & Runaways [60's]
I remember the library
as an attic, rather dark, in the upper floor of the schoolhouse, and
the gym in the basement with the coatroom to the side. The place was
really cold in winter. Church Sundays were mandatory, with
confession and communion recommended. We would ride the blue bus out
of town, and after service Mr. Francis would stop at a convenience
store where we could buy candy or soft drinks; the invariable
complaint by that evening being who ate what. My feeling that this
regular trip was an excuse for outing the compound is based on the
fact that several students ran away; two of them to Jamaica. You
could not fail to notice the progressive reduction of the student
body as the year went by, maybe by more than half at Easter-time.
Many were desperate to leave because the harsh discipline was almost
unbearable, but many parents were reluctant to admit the failure of
the school. One of the most vivid memories I have is that of Joe
Roy, proctor of Main House, menacing us by cracking a whip in the
1st. floor corridor. Another fellow in charge of discipline was "Sarge"
(a real quartermaster) who snapped several bottoms with a short
leather whip, but the poor fellow didn't make it through the year
because of a heart attack (though he survived). Remember Waco & the
Branch Dravidians? One gets the feeling that ours was a diluted
version. The errors made by LWF and his entourage jumped out after I
entered a British school. There they temper discipline with
solidarity; and the combination works. |
