Teacher, conductor, performer, James Freeman moves easily between the academic world and the g litte r of the Boston Pops. SENIORS SHOOT SUPERSPY SPOOF Resurrecting a tradi­ Darko Tresnjak ’88 (Count Darcula), Janet Erlick ’88 tion that has been in hiatus for the past few years, (Ms. Glasnost), Thad Wengert *91 (Thug), Jeff Peterson members of the senior class created a James Bond ’91 (Pathetic Prey), and Michael Breakey '88 (James spoof on video this spring. The plot of From Customs Bond). Middle row: Raul Cuza ’91 (cameraman), W ith Lo v e revolves around the College food service Jeremy Eisenberg '88 (director), Evan Wittenberg ’91 poisoning the Board of Managers so the Russians can (Felix Leiter). Reclining is Michele McDonald '89 (Miss take control of Swarthmore to return it to its Kremlin- Moneypenny). Whether or not this epic does boffo on-the-Crum days. Cast and crew include (back row) box-office biz remains to be seen. SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN I MAY 1988

2 . u Making A Case For Culture Mary Schmidt Campbell ’69 hopes visitors to New York City will be “assaulted” by the arts. W—ülH By Linda Barrett Osborne ’71

j 5 Movie Moguls Two Swarthmore seniors light the marquee, pop the com, and Æ | | | | f l restore the romance o f the silver screen in nearby Media. By Lauren Woodward ’88

7 Inside The Boston Pops The elegance and charm o f the Pops Esplanade Orchestra’s summer performances reflect the spirit of its members. By James Freeman

10 The Lost Children Recalling the harrowing struggle of Alfred Swan to save 850 starving children in the dark days o f the Russian Revolution. m l By J ane Ballard Swan ’47 16 Friendships That Never Stop Beginning Are the friendships formed in the intense undergraduate years at Swarthmore exceptional, even extraordinary? s By Lydia Razran Hooke ’64

Editor: | 2 3 Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49 Managing Editor: Intramural Sports Roger Williains Why students benefit from the body and mind rigors o f the Assistant Managing Editor: intramural sports program.. Kate Downing By Phil Weiser ’90 Copy Editor: Ann D. Geer Class Notes Editor: Nancy Curran i 2 4 Designer: Bob Wood Gomer Davies and the Tunnel of Light Cover: Photo by Steven Goldblatt ’67. A t the end of a thirty-six-year career, Gomer Davies reflects on p i sports, education, the good life, and politics.

The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN 0888-2126), o f which this is volume DEPARTMENTS LXXXV, number 5, is published in Sep­ tember, October, January, February, May, 27 The College and July by Swarthmore College, Swarth­ 32 Class Notes more, PA 19081. Second class postage paid at Swarthmore, PA, and additional 35 Deaths _!■■■■ »L V / 1 mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address 57 Letters to the Editor changes to Swarthmore College Bulletin, Swarthmore, PA 19081. Making the Case

On the eve of announced bud­ get cuts for New York, Mary Schmidt Campbell ’69, the city’s new commissioner of cul­ tural affairs, is on the phone with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Lincoln Center, with the New York Botanical Gardens, the Bronx Zoo, and Carnegie Hall—with most of the major organizations that stand for culture, not only in New York but throughout the country. “I called every one of the thirty-two institutions to which we give basic operating sup­ port,” she explains. “I think people deserve to know as quickly as possible, and in a very personal way, the impact on them. I have a very deep respect and love for these insti­ tutions. As organizations of in­ dividuals and resources in New York, they are just extraordi­ nary. Since I’ve been appointed commissioner, I’ve been con­ tinually surprised and delighted by the cultural diversity, by the sheer excellence of so many groups, large and small. I’m taking on the battle for them, but I don’t mind at all.” She pauses, then laughs and leans forward. “I must tell you, I actually enjoy this. I do. I have Mary Schmidt Campbell ’69 on campus for her first meeting o f the Board o f Managers. some very definite ideas about the value of culture in the city, not only in tan’s Children’s Museum, meet with officials to cut the library, cut parks maintenance, or the educational arena, but also for neighbor­ of the Women’s Interart Center, give a cut cultural affairs. But my feeling is that art hood development—the idea of using the speech to the American Crafts Council, and is an essential service. Cultural life gives growth of institutions as a focal point in stop in at Chinatown’s New York History people the tools to manage their lives by ex­ economically fragile communities. In prepa­ Project. She administers an annual $133 panding their vision and stimulating ideas. ration for the executive budget, I’ll get to million budget, which includes grants to 400 “But I can’t say things like ‘Art is good for make my case to the mayor. My work is cut New York City arts groups for free and the soul,” ’ she continues. “You find very out for me between now and April 15.” subsidized exhibitions, concerts, and perfor­ quickly that rhapsodic and anecdotal argu­ Sworn in as commissioner on Oct. 1, mances, as well as support for the thirty-two ments get nowhere with the Office of Man­ three weeks before her 40th birthday, Camp­ main institutions. agement and Budget. My challenge is to bell has already assumed a demanding She is an articulate advocate on behalf of convert those arguments into quantitative schedule that has her networking with cul­ all these groups for continued funding of the and statistical terms that are every bit as tural organizations, community groups, and arts and sciences. “One of the things we compelling as the sort of spiritual language government agencies throughout the city. In always lobby against is the idea that culture we all like to use. I have to say, ‘Look, these a typical week she might visit Staten Island’s and art are the frills,” observes Campbell. fourth graders are able to quote from The Snug Harbor Arts Complex, tour Manhat­ “In a time of fiscal constraint, it’s tempting Tempest.’ I have to be able to say how many By Linda Barrett Osborne 71

The new commissioner of not only of the Studio Museum, but of about yourself there,” says Campbell. cultural institutions like the Dance Theatre The Campbells traveled throughout east cultural affairs enjoys the of Harlem, Harlem School of the Arts, Boys’ and west Africa and even into Rhodesia battles and is amassing Choir, and Jazz-mobile. (now Zimbabwe), where they observed an “I think these kinds of organizations were apartheid system in action. Garikai was a remarkable number a legacy of the civil rights movement,” she born in Zambia. of victories says. “Arthur Mitchell was on his way to “Because he was firstborn and a male— Brazil when he heard of King’s death; the it was a privileged position there—his birth story is he got off the plane and came back tied us into the community in a way we of them there are and what it does for their and started Dance Theatre of Harlem. The would not otherwise have been,” she feels. reading levels and skills.” Studio Museum first opened its doors a few Yet after two years, “I felt like I was an But tackling New York City’s labyrinthine months after King’s assassination. There’s no African American, and not an African, very bureaucracy as a champion of culture seems question but that that kind of urgency and definitely. And I felt very much a proprietary the logical next step for the woman recog­ assertiveness of cultural identity was one of sense toward the United States: a real sense nized throughout the art world for trans­ the results of the civil rights movement. And of entitlement that it was mine as much as forming the Studio Museum in Harlem from I think, frankly, a lot of us who were activists it was anybody else’s, and that I had some a modest community arts project housed needed a place to put our energies.” very definite talents, and that that was where over a liquor store and fried chicken outlet Her own commitment to the civil rights I should be pursuing them. So what I dis­ to the only black fine arts museum accre­ movement, as well as to education and covered were not the things I set out to dited by the American Association of Mu­ community development, began during her discover, but they were wonderful nonethe­ seums. time at Swarthmore. As a black student in less.” Campbell had finished an M.A. in art the late ’60s, Campbell felt “a real tension” Her tenure at the Studio Museum was history and a Ph.D. in the humanities at about being at the College. “I was engaged marked also by discoveries about her role in Syracuse University and served as art editor by the whole intellectual experience,” she the art world, and there she developed a for the Syracuse New Times and as curator reflects, “but I had this feeling that something persistent, pragmatic, energetic approach to for the Everson Museum, when the Studio was happening back in the inner city, and I dealing with the realities of survival for a Museum’s board hired her to build a fine was missing it, and I wanted to be there.” cultural institution. She describes it as “my arts museum. She spoke to Dean Susan Cobbs about slow conversion from a scholar/historian to “I said OK. I was young enough that I transferring and was told in “that wonderful a business point of view. could say, ‘That sounds great’ and go for it,” Southern accent, ‘Mary Elizabeth, we would “I was an art historian going into the she remembers. “But when I look back on hate to lose you.’” Instead, they compro­ Studio Museum,” says Campbell. “I liked to it now, I think there was every reason to fail. mised and Campbell lived off campus, do writing and research and curate shows. The statistics in Harlem were grim. Ten working with the Young Great Society, a I thought the best way to make your argu­ years ago 70 percent of the people living neighborhood group offering tutorials and ment for a museum was to do what muse­ there were at or below t,he poverty line; the recreation programs in West Philadelphia ums do and let the public or the critics or the unemployment rate was about three or four public schools. scholars discover you. But I learned quickly times what it was in the city at large; and the In 1968 she married George Campbell, that if I were going to convince somebody housing stock was decimated. Given the Jr., a childhood friend, now a physicist with that it was worthwhile to have a museum, environment, the economics, and also the Bell Labs. They have two sons, Garikai I’d better make my case really well. I had to media perception that is relentless in making (“stay at peace”), a sophomore at Swarth­ fight for every penny we got. There were no Harlem synonymous with drugs, crime, and more, and 11-year-old Sekou (“warrior”). angels in the wings, no patrons, no endow­ failure, this did not seem like fertile ground Their African names reflect a pivotal experi­ ments.” for a fine arts museum.” ence in Campbell’s life. Within three weeks In Harlem, Campbell also strengthened Nevertheless, during her ten years as of her graduation from Swarthmore, she and her belief in the potential of cultural organi­ executive director, the Studio Museum ac­ her husband had settled in Zambia, where zations to improve education and to invigo­ quired a permanent 60,000-square-foot fa­ she taught English literature and he taught rate and develop the communities they cility on West 125th Street,- a staff of forty- math and science at a school for South serve. “I find it striking that in a place where five, and a $2.2 million annual budget. Her African refugees run by the African Amer­ people are very quick to lower expectations, recent exhibition and program on the Har­ ican Institute. we rose above those expectations to aspire lem Renaissance drew national attention “I felt compelled to go to Africa by some to something more. I’ve watched people at and led to a book, Harlem Renaissance: Art of the cultural imperatives of the time, by the institutions like Dance Theatre and Jazz- of Black America. idea that African Americans had a distinc­ mobile give their time and energy to cultivate Campbell attributes her success partly to tive heritage and its base was the Continent, excellence in the young people there, and the the spirit of the times, which saw the growth and somehow you could discover something payback has been extraordinary. It made

3 me wonder what would happen if we really ness here.” She is also concerned that many define themselves—and they know I can began to direct some resources toward those artists cannot afford to live in New York any work with them.” communities. I don’t think money is the longer and envisions limited equity coop­ Campbell also attributes to Swarthmore answer to everything—one needs ideas and eratives, where the upper floors of a reno­ some of the strengths she brings to the job: vision and a sense of an organization, a vated facility, sold to regular tenants, would “A problem-solving bent; the ability to push structure in place—but once you’ve got subsidize artists’ housing. things away from you and look at them in them, money helps.” Finally, Campbell hopes to introduce a an objective, dispassionate way; the ability She was encouraged by New York City’s formal program of long-term financial sta­ to sit down with something complex, go increasing commitment to education and bilization for cultural institutions. “Most arts through it and not just understand it but culture. When the job of commissioner of organizations are woefully undercapital­ understand it to the extent that you can cultural affairs became available, she sub­ ized,” she feels. “It would be like opening up function with it— absolutely, these are skills mitted her candidacy to Manhattan Borough a store and not having enough money to buy of Swarthmore College. President David Dinkins, “just to get my your inventory. New York’s institutions “And the ability to consume large ideas on the table. I had no burning desire could benefit from a stabilization program amounts of information,” she adds. “Some­ to get the job.” But as she thought more that involves developing a diverse income one asked me, ‘How do you keep all these about it, she began to feel that her own plans base, setting up reserve and quasi-endow­ things in your head?’ and in a flash I thought would be good for the city. Mayor Ed Koch ment funds, abiding by certain reporting about preparing for comprehensives. And I agreed. He chose Campbell from among six mechanisms, and encouraging donors to remember the year before we took Shakes­ strong contenders for the position. give enough funds to fully capitalize the peare, the professor said, ‘Of course you’ll Now Campbell has the opportunity to institution.” just read the complete works over the implement her four-point agenda, starting She has taken this agenda on the road, summer, and then we’ll talk about it’; and with an emphasis on arts in education, not getting to know the city government. “One we thought, ‘Sure, of course, we’ll read the only to encourage a wider audience for the thing you learn is that it’s a coalition; it’s complete works.’ We all made that kind of arts, but also to promote creativity and open teamwork at its most fundamental. Very assumption, that you’ll have a certain body up horizons for students. “When you take little gets done by you alone. It’s a lot of and mass of information and not just know children from the South Bronx on an archaeo­ salesmanship, and one really has to build up it but know it well. logical dig in Riverdale Park, you’re intro­ support and figure out how what other “I see my son Garikai grappling with this ducing them to the discovery of an eigh­ people do can best be consolidated or coor­ now,” she continues. “He will tell me, ‘I’ve teenth-century Indian village, to historical dinated with what you’d like to do. That’s never had this much information to con­ ideas, and to the possibility of a career as an pretty much what the early days of my sume; I’ve never had to think so hard in my archaeologist,” she explains about one of the administration have been like.” life.’ ” projects her office funds. She feels she can do her job well partly Observing her son’s experience at the She wants to make the city’s cultural because she represents the arts community College has also helped her put her own into institutions more visible to visitors and New she came from. “They know I understand perspective. “It is so radically different from Yorkers. “When you visit New York,” she what their issues are—looking for space, mine. He is on the wrestling team and holds says, “you should be assaulted by the rich­ raising money, gaining visibility, trying to an elective office, was a DJ on the College radio station, and now writes for The Phoe­ nix. He has clearly integrated himself into the life of the campus in ways that I didn’t uni mil even try to. What’s interesting to me is that he seems to be comfortable with that, com­ fortable with being black at Swarthmore, lllll and doesn’t see the tension in it that I did twenty years ago.” Now, as a parent and a member of lllilli HI MB i mIP HP *1! IPI IPI! « Swarthmore’s Board of Managers, Campbell I B I l i I ns ä § w « I n s n is particularly concerned that minority stu­ f 11 WM I dents feel able to take full advantage of what the College offers. She also finds herself becoming “much more woven into the life of the school” in her own right. “Shortly after graduating I felt very much that the campus and the whole Swarthmore life was behind me and that I was ready to kind of get on with ‘my’ life,” she smiles. “But in the twenty years that I’ve been away, it’s been a slow and gradual process of rediscovering the value of my experience there—the way I was forced to think and look at things, the human part. “My son chose to go there,” she con­ cludes. “To me, that is the ultimate testimony Campbell with New York Mayor Ed Koch. to its worth.” Not many students launch a full-scale busi­ newspapers picked up their story. ness enterprise as undergraduates. But two “Times were a little lean, starting out in Swarthmore seniors have successfully pooled the middle of a harsh winter,” says Cavalier. their savings and business savvy to keep the “Heavy snow kept a lot of people at home; marquee lit on an old movie house in Media, Seniors David Teszler meanwhile, we still had to get there every Pa. day and shovel the sidewalks.” Having an­ When the lease at the Media Theater ran and Philip Cavalier ticipated this slack period, they waited for out a year and a half ago, classmates David restore the romance of warmer weather to turn the tables. With the Teszler and Philip Cavalier seized the oppor­ opening of Children of a Lesser God in tunity to take over the business. With a new old-time moviegoing April 1987, attendance picked up signifi­ two-year lease in hand and a combined cantly and continued steadily throughout the investment of $4,500, Teszler and Cavalier summer months. bought the business and reopened the theater “We knew going into the business that it the first week in January 1987. was not going to be a real money-maker,” The theater, one of the oldest in the area, in him a fondness for the place, which they acknowledge. “Basically, we broke faces State Street in Media, a small town couldn’t help but encourage him to rescue even. When profits were better than usual, about two miles west of Swarthmore. Built the business when it threatened to close. “It they offset the earlier losses we incurred. in 1927, the auditorium retains its original would have been a shame for the theater to We’ve made a little bit of money.” character and charm, a mixture of art deco just stop operating once the lease ran out,” The theater’s format has remained essen­ detail and baroque ornament. It has become he comments. “They used to joke about my tially the same under their management: an institution in the community, hosting at taking over the theater after having worked Mainstream films are shown in the main one time such traditions as commencements there so long, that they should pay me to theater, while the smaller upstairs Screening for the old Media High School. An air of take the business! Only the first part came Room is reserved for art films like Othello old-style moviegoing continues to infuse the true.” and Blue Velvet. Their clientele continues to theater, offering a welcome respite from the Cavalier contributed to the enterprise in be predominantly middle-aged, in contrast proliferation of multiplex cinemas which are other ways. His experience working sum­ to the teen crowds that the newer theaters usually adjoined to malls and identical in mers since high school in his father’s and draw. “We get a lot of regulars,” says their formica pastels and sprawling parking other firms on Wall Street undoubtedly gave Cavalier. “They appreciate the personal lots. The original marquee still beckons him skills and confidence in venturing out touch of a small, independent ownership. brightly above the old-fashioned ticket into a business. The two first considered One couple comes in every week, no matter booth in front. The main theater is a richly taking over the operation as far back as what’s showing. They always buy a bucket textured, expansive room that seats 750 October 1985, when it was evident that “the of popcorn.” people. It boasts dark wood walls, elabo­ owners were losing interest in it,” recalls One of their primary concerns in running rately sculptured murals, ceiling reliefs, and Teszler. the theater is to maintain a friendly image. huge crystal chandeliers. The Screening Besides their strong friendship, these busi­ “We wanted to provide a theater that people Room, by contrast, is a cozier room, tucked ness partners share other interests. They would enjoy coming to,” says Cavalier. They into the original upper balcony. It seats 106 both are economics majors and four-year have increased the frequency of shows, as people. varsity athletes, having played defense for well as the variety shown during the week, Teszler and Cavalier, therefore, invested the lacrosse team since their freshman year and have scheduled special shows to draw in something that has more than immediate at Swarthmore. Cavalier defended the goal more diverse groups of people. Their $1 value. The theater is a building steeped in for the soccer team, while Teszler played twilight show has succeeded in bringing out the past, a past with which Teszler in fact is football. They certainly weren’t in for any senior citizens, as have weekend matinees well acquainted. His association with the big surprises in joining up for a partnership. for other audiences. “We’re even starting to theater stretches as far back as ninth grade, In their first year of operation, the rookie make arrangements for day-care centers and when he started doing light work there. owners have successfully managed the ups high school language classes to come in at Since then he has worked in nearly every and downs of a cash-flow business and specific times,” he says. capacity at the theater, from cleaning aisles generated publicity as well. Three local Teszler and Cavalier like to pay attention to managing it by his freshman year at to the details. As a sort of token of initiation Swarthmore. This was enough time to instill By Lauren Woodward ’88 to the business when they opened, they

MAY 1988 5 suited up to deliver handshakes to everyone ler. “People appreciate the little things.” re-carpeting the entire lower floor, sealing coming through the lobby. They’ve pushed Larger details require a little more grunt the leaks in the marquee, and fixing the concessions, offering a large variety of candy, work. Under the stipulations of the contract, neon, among other things. They admit that while keeping the prices low. Increased sales Media Real Estate, which leases the building, the theater deserves a bigger budget for in that area, from an average 40 cents to 90 will cover the costs of any physical improve­ renovation. “The interior could really use a cents per person per show, have contributed ments or general maintenance over a certain face-lift, new paint, etcetera,” they say. But to revenues. Also cleanliness is heavily em­ amount. Teszler and Cavalier then negotiate unless the building officially becomes a phasized. “We keep the theater as a whole with the landlord to effect whatever changes historic landmark, treated to hefty federal much cleaner than it used to be,” says Tesz- they want to make. They have succeeded in tax benefits, these major needs unfortunately will have to be ignored. Teszler and Cavalier currently each put in fifteen to twenty hours of work a week at the theater. They are responsible for the order­ ing, financial accounting, negotiating with film distributors, and overseeing general daily operation. “Owning a theater means making sure everything gets done all the time. It’s a pretty big commitment,” says Teszler. They employ about thirty staff members, half of whom are students from Swarthmore. While they have delegated managerial duties to three of these students, they hope to train several on-site managers well enough to permit themselves a fair amount of freedom once they graduate this June. The theater has been strictly an interlude in bigger career plans for both of them. They don’t foresee any difficulty in conducting affairs long distance for the last remaining months of their lease, which expires in January 1989. Cavalier anticipates working on Wall Street, and Teszler plans to look for a job in management consulting and earn an M.B.A from the Wharton School at some point in the future. “We were iucky to have this opportunity. The risks were minimal because this is a low-volume, cash-flow business that in­ volved no overhead and a lease that covered big costs. This has basically been a free education except for a little of our time.” Cavalier and Teszler consider this experience valuable for the kind of hands-on exposure they have gotten in running a business. One of the intrinsic benefits in running the Media Theater is that it demands constant attention at the same time that it offers creative outlets. They can’t run things from a desk; they have to lock up at night and keep the movies showing, while everyone else they know is on school break. No matter what they might go on to do in the “higher” echelons of business, which may be far removed from human scale, they will have gotten a chance to control all the variables, to know a busi­ ness from the ground up. A

Proud proprietors Philip Cavalier ’88 and David Teszler ’88 outside Media’s State Street theater. EVAN WITTENBERG ’91

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN By James Freeman

I was 12 when my father, then the associate Standing ovations, a of my musical being I would not want to forgo. For that reason, each summer I be­ principal double bass player of the Boston remarkable esprit de corps, Symphony Orchestra, brought home a three- come a full-time bass player with the Boston quarter-size bass for me. He gave me two or and the joy of performing lure Pops. three introductory lessons in which I learned Music Department Chairman I should say immediately that the orches­ how to hold the bow and play a few notes James Freeman to spend tra I play in is really the Boston Pops in the half position. And the next month I Esplanade Orchestra. When I first began summers with the found myself the only bass player at Green­ playing with the Pops (derived historically wood Music Camp in the Berkshires. One celebrated orchestra. from the membership of the Boston Sym­ of my most vivid memories is of our first phony Orchestra), those of us who were orchestra rehearsal. We began with the invited to play were substitutes for absent overture to Mozart’s Don Giovanni. After a ment of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. But regular members. The orchestra’s manage­ few minutes the conductor stopped the they were enough to start me searching for ment gradually realized, however, that a orchestra, looked over at me, and said sadly, others like them. paying audience (not only in Boston but “Jim, that should be about a foot higher!” Thirty-five years later, most of my time, throughout the world) could be expected to He was too kind to have added, “And about energy, and love for music go into a host of fill any hall for many more concerts than the ten measures farther on!” teaching, conducting, performing, and ad­ regular Pops members could play before By the end of the summer, I could come ministrating activities at Swarthmore, but I they departed for Tanglewood for the sum­ pretty close to keeping up with the Mozart find some time, too, to play bass for the mer. The Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, (the slow introduction I had mastered com­ Opera Company of Philadelphia, partly to or BPEO, which plays from early June pletely), as well as the Brahms-Haydn Vari­ indulge my continuous fascination with through mid-July, was designed to fill that ations, Bartok’s Roumanian Dances, and opera, partly to keep up both my credentials need. It is entirely a substitute orchestra, and Debussy’s Petite Suite. And I had experi­ and my ability as a professional player, and though the distinction between the two enced a few of those spine-tingling chills partly to experience from within the orches­ orchestras is carefully maintained in all (when the sheer beauty of the music seems tra those chills that keep all of us searching advertising, there is no doubt that the public to overwhelm you) that have made all of us for more. To be sure, playing the piano, is hardly, if at all, conscious of that distinction who have become musicians realize why we conducting, learning scores, and above all since both orchestras are loosely called “The had to do that. They were nothing compared sharing and discovering with students the Pops.” The regular Pops players do all the to the rush of emotion that enveloped me a intricate beauties of a particular piece of recording, play from mid-April through early few months later when as a boy soprano I music are intensely satisfying musical expe­ June, and make almost all the tapes shown stood in the midst of the incredible sounds riences, each in a totally different way. But on PBS. (Those people who have always of the Boston Symphony and the New the uniquely visceral sensations of being been a little suspicious of my relations with England Conservatory Chorus, conducted within and at the same time at the very the Pops will now understand why they by Charles Munch, in the opening move- foundation of a first-rate orchestra are a part have seldom or never spotted me on TV.)

MAY 1988 7 Professor Freeman, foreground, with his six bass exuberance and an infectious extroversion office.) By now all of us could all too easily colleagues, toured Japan with the BPEO last summer. that ironically have become the critically play Selections from My Fair Lady in our acclaimed trademarks of our orchestra. sleep. But I think most have decided that the The BPEO does almost all the touring, While the regular Pops members have all Pops must either be wonderful fun in every including several national tours and a very won their positions through formal compe­ musical, physical, and psychological way recent one to Japan, and the always-televised titions and we have not, all of us in the we can think of and invent, or desperate Fourth of July concerts. BPEO are in effect continually auditioning drudgery. And we have opted for the former. Despite its ersatz status, the BPEO is a for our positions. Unlike those of the regular I think that choice is clearly evident in every superb orchestra, certainly the best I’ve Pops members, our contracts each year are concert we play. played in. Its members are mostly young, for one summer only; and as every free­ A lot of my musician friends may actually trained in Boston, and many, like myself, lance musician knows, in the eyes of man­ be surprised to learn that I get those old have positions elsewhere that leave the agement you are only as good as the last gig chills fairly frequently in the Pops, despite summer months free. Perhaps because the you played. Job security goes no further the repertoire and the repetition. Stars and season for us is relatively short (five to seven than that. Fortunately for us, this manage­ Stripes Forever, especially in that wonderful weeks), relatively glorious (the standing ova­ ment’s clear intent is to keep the BPEO spot in the second strain of the second tune tion is an every-night affair), and very well together as a unit as much as possible and where the harmony changes magically to paid, everyone in the orchestra seems to thereby maintain the remarkable esprit de V/vi, hardly ever fails me, though the piece cherish his or her relationship with the Pops corps that already exists in it. is a staple of nearly every concert. There are and to have a real sense of pride in the A member of the Metropolitan Opera certain places in the Grieg Concerto and the orchestra. There is almost none of the dis­ Orchestra (which plays four- and five-hour Rachmaninoff-Paganini Variations, both old content that seems to be characteristic of performances almost every night) once told standbys, that never seem to pale, especially many of the major orchestras in this country. me she thought everyone in that orchestra with a good pianist. And in John Williams’s And there is clearly a mutual respect and had basically two options: to become a own music, particularly E.T. and Close even fondness between the orchestra as a complete opera buff, fascinated by all aspects Encounters, the two pieces I believe he him­ whole and the conductor, John Williams, of every production, or to go slowly berserk. self feels most strongly about, there are some who would very much like to see the I believe that most of us in the BPEO also wonderful moments. BPEO’s role expanded. have made semiconscious decisions about But the chills in the Pops come as often The success of the BPEO also owes how we must respond to six nights a week from the extraordinary effect the orchestra something to the fact that our existence as an of performing music whose principal intent has on the audience as from the music itself: orchestra is continually threatened by the is frankly to entertain rather than edify, for the gasps of chauvinistic and musical delight regular Pops players. Perhaps understand­ an audience that may not be paying full and the spontaneous ovation that always ably, they see us as intruders taking advan­ attention. (The revenue from the sale of occur when the brass section stands and the tage of their illustrious reputation. Knowing snacks and beverages during the perfor­ American flag unfurls over the stage at the this, we seem to play each concert with an mances is rumored to exceed that of the box close of Stars and Stripes; two hundred

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN thousand people on the Esplanade next to spinning basses take both the conductor and player and in a sense can bask all summer the Charles River for the Fourth of July audience by surprise and produce special in the pure collegiality of the orchestra. concerts, all worked up to a fever pitch applause, there is a good deal of self-con­ The Pops is very different under John (some of them having camped out on the gratulatory commentary in the section and Williams than it was under Arthur Fiedler. grass for a week in order to be as close as some good-natured envy from the rest of the Fiedler was not a poetic musician, but even possible to the orchestra); fifteen thousand orchestra. (Some other sections have experi­ in his last years he had a remarkable cha­ people at Red Rocks outside Denver spon­ mented with synchronized spins of their risma that was felt as much by the orchestra taneously rising to dance in the aisles in the own, all without success, since no other as the audience. He was as watchful for and middle of a Glenn Miller arrangement; sixty section is as visible as ours.) We have as vocally critical of mistakes in concerts as thousand people in Brantford, Ontario, build­ occasionally also been reprimanded by the he was in rehearsals. And since he had the ing and then after the concert demolishing management for on-stage antics (such as best ears for hearing such errors (and the before our eyes an earthen island they had synchronized trotting around the seven in­ best eyes, too, for seeing them) that I have constructed in the middle of the Grand struments) that seemed inappropriately bois­ ever known, it was very seldom that any­ River just for our performance; the applause terous. thing escaped his attention and criticism. As in Suntory Hall, Tokyo, continuing for ten An intangible wall stands between players a result, the orchestra was always alert, even minutes after the orchestra has finally left and conductors that must always be present. in the most insipid repertoire. the stage; and wherever the Pops plays, The BPEO likes and respects John Williams I believe John Williams thinks of himself ecstatic reviews, standing ovations, and the and associate conductor Harry Ellis Dickson primarily as a composer. He enjoys con­ kind of audience hysteria, sometimes pure (the father-in-law of Michael Dukakis ’55) ducting because that is a way in which he adoration, that only the most successful rock for their humility and graciousness. But can involve himself directly in making live groups ordinarily enjoy (there are even Pops neither is on familiar terms, rightly so, with music. But he has no pretensions as a groupies) and that no other orchestra in the the orchestra members. A conductor who is “maestro,” in the nineteenth-century sense world (except the regular Pops) can antici­ overly familiar becomes an object of some of that word, despite the fact that he is a very pate. We know it is in large part the magic suspicion. Since I do a fair amount of con­ able conductor. If something goes wrong in of the name itself that produces this. But we ducting at Swarthmore and in Philadelphia, rehearsal, he will often blame himself (un­ also know (and feel a good deal of pride in I am very conscious of the gulf that suddenly thinkable for a conductor of Fiedler’s style that knowledge) that our concerts have exists between me and the other musicians and generation); and he clearly relishes the made the magic still brighter and that having when I pick up a baton. Those who were fact that the orchestra enjoys playing for heard us for the first time, many people in once my close friends are for the moment him. Still, whether its Fiedler, Williams, the audience now understand why the Pops not exactly adversaries but no longer frater­ Dickson, Henry Mancini, Mitch Miller, is so famous. nal comrades. We are working toward the John Mauceri, Erich Kunzel, Peter Nero For most of us the tours represent the same end, but the fact that I must be the one (whose own Philly Pops, in which my wife excitement of performing before new audi­ who makes the musical decisions obliges us Dorothy, coincidentally, plays oboe and ences, as well as long sought opportunities to regard each other in a somewhat different English horn, is as good as any orchestra to travel and see the world. The BPEO light. In Boston, however, I am simply a bass around), or any of a host of others who have members seem to spend their free time on guest conducted the BPEO in recent years, these tours in especially active ways. A there have been very few concerts at which group of five of us has now made carefully the audience did not leap to its feet at the planned “assaults” on the heights (but not end, pleading for more. The Boston Pops is the peaks) of Mt. Rainier, Mt. Hood, and clearly an American treasure to millions of Mt. Fuji on our free days. We are already people, and that fact as much as anything talking about similar expeditions to other else keeps me returning to Boston each mountains during future tours. Other mem­ summer. bers have methodically explored famous Meanwhile my older son, Tim, now a American trout streams, gliding and hang freshman at Carleton College, is already an gliding facilities throughout the country, accomplished bass player, and my younger mud-wrestling arenas, major league ball­ son, Ted, is just starting the instrument. parks, sushi restaurants, art museums, and Perhaps it is the fact that there has been a gyms. One of the brass players manages to bass standing in the corner of three different find a new blond in every city. We thought rooms in the house for as long as they can he’d have trouble in Japan, but a different remember that has induced them to follow woman, golden tresses always flowing, in the footsteps of their father and grand­ appeared backstage with him even in Shi­ father (who still gives them occasional point­ zuoka, Nagoya, and Osaka. ers). Or it may be that they, too, have felt One reason the job is so pleasant for me those musical chills that can never be forgot­ personally is that my most immediate col­ ten. In any case, I have my hands full leagues, the six other bass players, are all teaching them not just the right notes and excellent musicians and good friends. Before the most poignant expression of those notes, and during every concert we discuss where but also the value of a really well-synchro­ “the spin” should be that night: in which A 12-year-old. Jim Freeman continues the tradi­ nized spin. And when the four of us, repre­ piece, at which measure, beginning and tion of a double bassist in the family with his senting three generations of bass players, ending on which beat, and with what sort of three-quarter-size instrument. Now Freeman’s take that act on the road one of these days, esthetic intent. When seven simultaneously sons carry the custom into the third generation. it should be a good show.

9 THE ODYSSEY OF T H E LOST CHILDREN How a former music professor helped save 850 stranded and starving victims of the Russian Revolution

By Jane Ballard Swan ’47 collapsed. Transportation was inadequate, and food, fuel, and military supplies were bogged down in a morass of disorganization, obsolescence, and often deliberate sabotage Alfred Swan, Swarthmore College's first by forces within Russia itself. Big and little professor o f music, organized and taught in defeats followed one upon the other, and the the Department o f Music from 1926 to 1956. loss in human life was incalculable. By the Although an Englishman, he was raised in winter of 1917, with almost no warning, St. Petersburg*, Russia, and stayed there revolution broke out in the capital, and in a until after the Bolshevik Revolution. During disorderly fashion the Czar was not actually the chaotic years o f the revolution and civil overthrown but simply toppled from his war, he and his first wife, Katherine, man­ throne. A caretaker government proved in­ aged to save the lives o f about 850 children adequate for the many problems facing the with the aid o f the American Red Cross. Professor Alfred Swan in 1958 nation, and within months a small minority Jane Ballard Swan, a former student and In the late summer of 1914, the senseless of revolutionaries, led by a smaller minority later his second wife, has been able to re­ murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir of radical Socialists, seized control of the construct the story from his reminiscences, to the Austro-Hungarian throne, provoked a government. The grim loss of life from the diaries, and several trips to the Soviet Union chain of events that culminated in World war, famine in the cities, a nearly total to interview many o f the children about their War L As Sir Edwin Grey of England said, breakdown in transportation, and the com­ odyssey. “The lamps are going out all over Europe: ing bitter winter produced a state of anarchy Jane Swan, now Mrs. Robert Gruen, said We shall not see them lit again in our in the bigger cities, with Petrograd in the in a recent speech at Pendle H ill ‘Tve been lifetime.” north being the hardest hit of all. a professional historian for the last thirty For Russia this prediction certainly came Toward the end of the winter of 1917-18, years, dealing basically with teaching, re­ true. Living up to her alliance commitment most of the schools were shut down, for who search, and writing on kings and queens, with England and France, Russia was also could guarantee that a child leaving for wars, treaties, violent confrontations, more trying to protect her weaker Slav brothers. school in the morning would return safely at violence leading to more violence, leading to She therefore entered the war, although night? It was for this reason that parents, more kings and queens. But I was always woefully unprepared for any military con­ with the aid of school administrators and a intrigued with stories that my husband A If red frontation. Within months her hard-pressed civilian organization called the Union of told o f his early youth in Russia, particularly armies were living like rats in extended Towns, sent 850 children between the ages one about 850 small children who, because trenches, trying to hold back the combined of 3 and 15 to the foothills of the Ural moun­ of the civil war, had to travel around the armies of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and tains for a never-to-be-forgotten summer worldfor 2 lh years in order to get home from later Bulgaria, which relentlessly pounded vacation, with unexpectedly dramatic and a ‘summer vacation. ’ None of them ever the front lines. Gradually both the civil and drastic consequences. This was an area became kings or queens or even important military administrations behind the lines where famine and chaos of the war had not people, but it seemed to me that they were the yet been felt. people o f whom history is made. ” Leningrad, formerly S t Petersburg (1703-1914) The result was that in May 1918 these and Petrograd (1914-1924). youngsters left Petrograd in three different train caravans. Surely by fall, when the teaching. Alfred Swan’s family, although food. Unable to bear the tales, they decided children would return safe and well-fed, English, had lived in St. Petersburg for four to backtrack 500 miles to Myass, whence conditions at home would have improved, generations, and Alia, completely adopting the stories emanated. and life would have returned to its prewar his Russian environment, had become a When they arrived at Myass, although normality. convinced Tolstoyan. He embraced pacifism they did not find roving packs of children, The “colonists,” as they were called, ex­ and an all-enveloping love for fellow human they found one section of the colony housed pected to arrive at their destination, Myass, beings as a strong and workable philosophy. in an old wooden barrack in desperate within two days. But no one foresaw the With the outbreak of World War I, he and circumstances. Promising to help, but with chaos of the railroad system. There were Katia had thrown themselves into teaching no idea how they could, Alia and Katia constant rumors of mined bridges, daylong and caring for children of factory workers, returned to Omsk and begged the YMCA to stops when the children left the train search­ spending twelve hours a day in several stay. However, the YMCA, having neither ing for food, and frightening moments that different jobs. Heading south, their trip down the personnel nor the money for such a job, only the teachers knew about, when vicious the Volga on a steamboat was like a dream, advised Alia to try to contact the American threats brought the train to a stop for hours and when they saw mountains of bread Red Cross (ARC), which had just landed in on end. However, almost four weeks later stacked on docks, presumably for shipment Vladivostok. They had come to aid all refu­ most of the children arrived at Myass— to the North, the passengers were ecstatic. gees, without regard for political or national although some had to be sidetracked to They stopped in Samara [Kuibyshev] affiliations. other spots as cars were rerouted for security thinking to pass the summer months there, For three weeks Alia telegraphed up and reasons. but Czech soldiers passing through the city down the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Finally a Here, in a former summer resort, a short bombed and captured it. Soon civil war was terse answer arrived: “All children will be summer of halcyon days quickly rejuvenated disrupting the entire countryside. Alia, or­ taken care of by ARC. Stop. Take charge of skinny, tired bodies, and soon the lake dering a meal in a vegetarian restaurant, work. Stop. Meet first representative at reverberated to happy cries of young voices. Omsk and get money and clothing for chil­ A morning regime of classes helped the dren.” children to catch up on a missed year of By now Alia had located the seven places studies. But as July gave way to August, where the children had been sent, covering dark clouds again gathered over Russia. “Conditions worsened several thousand miles of Siberia. When the Civil war broke out, further exacerbated by Red Cross representative arrived, he brought almost 80,000 Czech troops trying to cross and food supplies with him a mile-long train of freight cars the entire breadth of Russia. They hoped to dwindled to weak filled with sweaters, coats, socks, and warm leave from Vladivostok and, by circling the clothing for the children, as well as money globe, return to their native land to resume soup made of rotten and supplies. Supper that night was a verit­ their private battle with the Austro-Hun­ able feast with the ARC representative, garian Empire to free Czechoslovakia. vegetables. Bishop Tucker, who invited them into his Just when it seemed that Russia could personal dining car and served them real suffer no more, even the Poles invaded. The white bread, butter, and an American mira­ result of this for the children was the cutting cle—canned peaches in sweet syrup. off of communications with parents and But back in their own cold boxcar, which increased restriction of supplies. As condi­ offered to help a rather desperate American, was to be their home for the next year and tions worsened and food supplies dwindled whose Russian was basically sign language a half, gloom descended. How could the to weak soup made of rotten vegetables and and loudly mispronounced words, asking supplies be gotten to the children? Who just a few crumbs of bread a day, the for food. He turned out to be the head of the would help? Suddenly Alia, looking out the frightened teachers divided the children into YMCA secretaries in western Siberia and dirty window, cried, “There, there, just seven groups and sent them out in all promptly offered Alia a job, first as a trans­ walking down toward the end of the tracks directions, hoping that kind townspeople, lator and soon after as his personal assistant. —they’ll help—look! I’ll get them!” villagers, and anyone who could would take Too soon the collapse of the Whites, which Dashing out to the end of the platform, he in the children. Some teachers absconded meant everyone from Mensheviks to right- soon returned with three young people. Red with the available money, but a few dedi­ wing officers of the Czar’s army, imperiled and white stars on the sleeves of their coats cated teachers stayed with the children. all relief delegations, and as a result of the indicated that they were members of the The coming of winter made the situation United States entering the war, orders were Society of Friends. They introduced them­ even more desperate for the children, who, given for all foreign relief delegations to selves as Gregory Welsh and Charley Colies, prepared only for a summer vacation, had leave the country. Alia and Katia were asked both English, and their Russian interpreter, no warm clothing, and most of their summer to guide the YMCA workers to Omsk to Xenia Jukova. They also were leaving Rus­ clothes were worn to shreds.' meet up with other YMCA secretaries, who sia unable to do any more work. Quickly At the same time that the colonists left would cross Siberia and leave for home from Alia outlined for them the problems and Petrograd, a young Englishman, Alfred (Alia) Vladivostok. dreadful plight of the children. But at their Swan, and his Russian wife, Katherine It was on this overcrowded-train trip that bemused silence, he simply begged for help. (Katia), also decided to go south for the the Swans began to hear strange tales about Suddenly Charley Colies said, “I’m staying. summer in search of better living conditions, wild children roaming the steppes, almost You, too? Which colonies do you want me intending to return in the fall to continue without clothing and begging and stealing to take, Mr. Swan?” “Please call me Alia,” and with that they all exchanged hearty Above: Girls whose handshakes and after splitting two small heads were shaved to peaches left in the bottom of the last can, the avoid typhus. Above five scared young people made extensive right: A group o f boys plans. having just boarded the ship Yomei Maru. The next few months were spent in super­ Right: Children dressed human efforts to locate the various colonies for Christmas Eve, and get enough supplies to them to see the 1919. Facing page: An children through the long Siberian winter. emergency stop on the One of the first visits was to Tumen and train to Siberia after presaged events to come. Hundreds of miles the early morning flight had to be traversed in their cold, barren from Turgayak (inset). boxcar liberally populated with fat bedbugs and with wooden board benches for beds. Arriving at the one long street of Tumen, they found the children living in an old, wooden stockade fortress built in the six­ teenth century by the notorious cossack this be salvation? Oh, do stop fighting,” she Cross railroad-car hospitals tried to stem the Captain Strogonov. Entering the gate they said quite helplessly. “We are so desperate. plague, but there was little done and the saw that the main staircase had been turned Most of our children stay in bed because need was great. In Ekaterinburg [Sverd­ into an open latrine, and they surprised one they have no clothes. Some of them sold lovsk], when Alia was trying to get permis­ little boy using it. Seeing the visitors, he beat their sheets and pillowcases to buy rabbit sion to move his supplies from a central a hasty retreat and disappeared. Wading skins to make warm caps and mittens, and railroad depot to Troitsk, he came down through the filth, the Swans found con­ they’re trying to divide them. The girls are with typhus. For a week he lay at death’s ditions inside the building almost as bad. keeping up a little better, but we are all so door, and it was only by heroic actions on Light from one dirty window showed a frightened by winter and hunger. Oh, food Katia’s part that she was able to get the last group of half-clad boys crowded around one is our greatest problem.” shot of serum east of the Ural mountains. So small chap who was playing a balalaika. Realizing talk about morals or serious old was the serum that the aftermath of wild Other boys lay on cots sleeping or com­ study was useless, the Swans left and quickly swelling of his face and body was almost fortably propped up reading torn, yellowish arranged for a carload of warm clothes to be worse than the illness itself. But he was one books. In the middle of the room a di­ delivered. They located a nearby shoe fac­ of the few lucky ones to survive. sheveled group of boys was so absorbed in tory and within a matter of days had warm The survival of the Kuraii colony was a game of cards that the boys didn’t even dresses, shirts, pants, coats, and two pairs of little short of a miracle. A diary given to the notice the presence of the Swans. Someone shoes made for every child. Money was author by one of the children, Vera Schmidt, grabbed all the cards while one little boy allotted to the remaining teachers to pur­ tells her frightening story. Unable to reach teased an older boy who was sleeping. The chase necessary food and fuel for the next Myass, the children had been sidetracked to sleeper awoke with a yell and proceeded to two months, and Charley Colles was as­ Kuraii, a small summer resort near Eka­ thrash the brat who disturbed him, not even signed to watch over and visit the colony. terinburg. Actually the Czar and his family seeing the visitors. In the next room a group Visits to other colonies yielded similar were imprisoned there in the city while the of boys about age 12 was fistfighting over stories. Thousands of refugees simply children were vacationing nearby. Summer something white and fluffy. Suddenly a stormed the railroad, going nowhere, coming flew by rapidly until mid-July, when, amidst worried-looking woman appeared at the from nowhere—living, dying on the tracks the sound of distant gunfire, a trickle of door. “Oh! Are you the visitors from the at the railroad stations. With the outbreak of shabbily dressed soldiers began to straggle Red Cross? How glad I am to see you! Can typhus, whole areas were decimated. Red into the village. Soon the trickle became a

12 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLET

torrent, and several children ran back to the summer hotel where they were staying, to tell the teachers. The teachers knew that fighting had broken out in the Ukraine, various places in Siberia, and even north around Archangel, but there had been no warning that Kuraii was unsafe. The gunfire drew closer until suddenly bullets began flying through the windows. Hastily gather­ ing all the children, they told them to lie down on the floor. The battle line swept rapidly westward through the hotel grounds. Now the town was filled with strangers, all wearing Czech uniforms, much to the amaze­ ment of the Russians. By the end of the day, Czech soldiers and officers moved freely through the hotel and park. As evening approached, a line of Red soldiers tied together with ropes was marched up in front of the hotel veranda. The faces of these soldiers clearly showed that they were terribly frightened, young peasant boys. The curious children hanging out of the windows watched in fascination as a dozen Czech soldiers took up a position opposite them and began to load their rifles. By the time the teachers realized that they were about to witness an execution, they had no time to move the spellbound children inside, away from the windows. Then, to everyone’s horror, a volley of shots rang out, producing the ugly picture of young Red soldiers sinking to the ground, some quickly, but others not quite dead, screaming and Top to bottom: Four un­ jerking until a second volley ended their identified. boys in Siberia; agony. children and. their teachers with Swedish Red Cross Within two days the Czechs had left the administrator Sarve (seated town, and it became a no man’s land, with second from left); a roving gangs of soldiers—not owing alle­ Japanese officer aboard giance to any side—repeatedly invading the the Yomei Maru with hotel, slitting mattresses to look for money, Rebecca a n d R ita. and taking all the food and money of the colony. In vain the teachers tried to explain that there were only children there. ment for days. A major problem was surly Stanitza, he had to enlist the help of Czech Without provisions, the teachers finally peasants who refused to accept the new soldiers to pry them loose from two conniv­ sent the children out in small groups to beg. money of the Red Cross and stubbornly de­ ing teachers and local peasants, who were At first the villagers tried to help but soon manded czarist rubles, convinced that there using the colonists as hostages for Red Cross shut their doors, unable to cope with the would never be a different currency. It soon money. need. Vera and two little girls found a stray became obvious that sheer distance was the For the moment it seemed as if the White cow, and as Vera attempted to milk it, the worst enemy to aiding the children, and forces were winning, and law and order peasant owner, seeing her, ran up and Swan began searching for a central place to might soon replace the numerous factions severely beat her with a club. To this day she bring all the children together in preparation causing the civil war. At Turgayak a school shudders at the memory. for their return home the following summer. program was set up, sports instituted, and As Alia and Katia crisscrossed thousands He located a summer resort on Lake Tur- choral singing, plays, even football matches of miles in Siberia, they themselves encoun­ gayak and with Herculean effort managed organized. A steady supply of food was ar­ tered thugs, a fire that all but destroyed their to get several of the colonies there by the ranged, and doctors and nurses were hired boxcar, and snowstorms that blocked move­ following June. For the colony of Uskaya to look after the health of the children. But

14 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN once again the fortunes of war made an racks and parade grounds for games and The city by now was like a ghost town, with about-face, and the Red Cross, realizing that fairs. Local ARC chapters and all sorts of buildings and shops boarded up. No public the children were directly in the line of Russian organizations liberally entertained transportation existed. retreating White forces and advancing Red the children with zoo trips, ferry rides on the As each group of children came into the forces, decided to transport the children Hudson, bus tours of New York City, and city, a frail, shabby woman kept running across Siberia to Vladivostok, on the eastern the like. among them showing a faded photograph: coast of the Russian Empire. The magnitude Early one morning Private Jack Berhim “Do you know my son Pavlusha? Have you of the enterprise is attested to by documents was coming off guard duty and was on his seen him?” Sadly the children would turn in the Red Cross archives in Washington, way back to his own quarters. As he rounded their heads away. She was the mother of D.C. a corner, 14-year-old Pavel Nicolaeff Pavel Nikolaeff, who had been killed in It took three weeks to reach Vladivostok jumped out at him with a broomstick simu­ New York. on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Along the lating a gun and smartly presented arms. way the train was attacked by the notorious Falling into the game, Berhim unslung his brigand Semenov, who was funded by the own rifle and smartly presented arms, for he For those who remember Alfred Swan, Japanese. They passed through villages had often played with the boys. Inadver­ this article would not be complete without a where all that could be seen were burning tently his finger touched the trigger. The gun brief account of Alia and Katia’s strange buildings and figures hanging from trees. went off, and Pavel dropped dead with a pilgrimage that led to thirty years o f teaching On arrival in Vladivostok, the children bullet in his head. The soldier shouted, ran at Swarthmore College. Tolstoyism, paci­ were again organized into a pattern of nor­ to the guardhouse, and then, grabbing a fism, and Quakerism all came together in a mal, disciplined life, and the winter was first-aid kit, cried that he had killed a child. small liberal arts college in a Quaker cor­ spent in an, amazingly civilized fashion. It Berhim, Russian-born although a newly ridor just outside Philadelphia, where like- was at this time that Alia and Katia, who minded people pursued their hopes and had been put on the Bolshevik government’s dreams in a sympathetic atmosphere. wanted list for immediate arrest, were sent Alia and Katia Swan traveled in 1920 by the ARC to America and back to Eng­ “By now the Bolsheviks from Vladivostok, via the United States, to land for their own safety. But by the spring England They had hoped to settle down of 1920, Vladivostok fell to the Red forces, were thundering in the there with Alia’s family, most of whom had and one by one all the foreign expeditionary international press left Russia. Alia soon realized that he could forces, including the United States, were not earn a living in depression-ridden Eng­ departing. The Red Cross, facing the threat about the kidnapping, land Returning to the United States, he of having the children held as hostages obtained a teaching post at the University o f against the Bolsheviks by the Japanese, who capturing, hostage­ Virginia and eventually accepted a dual refused to leave, chartered a 10,000-ton teaching appointment as professor of music boat, the Yomei Maru. Now the strangest taking imperialist ARC. ” at both Swarthmore and Haverford colleges. part of the trip began. Here he rapidly became known for his schol­ Over 850 children, plus teachers, ARC arship in Russian fo lk music and the ancient personnel, doctors, cooks, nurses, the cap­ naturalized American, had played with the chant o f the Russian Orthodox church. His tain, officers, and crew set out on an over­ children often and, speaking their language, compositions in secular and church music crowded ship across the Pacific Ocean to was extremely popular with them. Realizing were performed with increasing frequency San Francisco. By now the Bolsheviks, the seriousness of the incident and the dam­ in America and Europe. His wife Katia aware of the situation, were thundering in age it could cause, the ARC asked for an became a specialist in linguistics, with par­ the international press about the kidnapping, immediate court-martial. Testimony was ticular emphasis on the old Slavonic lan­ capturing, hostage-taking, imperialist ARC. given by all concerned, and the friends of guage of the church and state in Russia From San Francisco, the ark, rivaling Noah’s Pavel wrote a touching letter telling the during the medieval ages. She died in 1943. in cargo and drama, slowly made its way court that it was an accident and that Private In 1947Alia married Jane Ballard, one o f down the western coast of the United States Berhim had to be innocent. Even the Rus­ his music students, who was fascinated by and Mexico, part of Central America, and sian teachers went to the defense of the Russian history and became a professor of through the Panama Canal. Unpleasant in­ soldier, and he was completely exonerated. history at West Chester University in 1955. cidents occurred. One sailor attempted to Within two days the Yomei Maru set off Her master’s thesis was a description o f the molest a little girl. Another sailor, losing a on the final leg of her trip—across the first part o f the odyssey o f the Lost Children. wrestling match with a Russian boy, drew a Atlantic, through the Kiel Canal, and into With the death of Stalin, communication knife and later shot off a revolver. The the Baltic Sea. Two additional months were with the “children” increased, with many captain even tried to restrict the use of deck spent in Finland until parents or guardians more daring to correspond with the Swans, space by the children, until a firm stand by of the children could be located in Russia. and, as a result of the letters and easing of the ARC director, threatening to take on Then on Jan. 26, 1921, the last of eight travel conditions, the Swans went to the U.S. Marines at Panama, calmed the situa­ groups crossed over the Black Kiver, the Soviet Union in 1963 and 1966. After the tion. new dividing line between the U.S.S.R. and death of Alfred Swan in 1970, Jane Swan The arrival in New York amidst virulent Finland. was asked by the “children ” in Russia and Communist propaganda made a rapid de­ Later reports revealed that not all was by some American friends to return to parture necessary. But not before one sad, warmth and gladness for the children. Es­ Russia, In 1975 she did and made oral tapes totally apolitical incident occurred. The chil­ corted by soldiers who stole their posses­ of the stories of about a dozen of the chil­ dren were staying at Fort Wadsworth on sions, including Red Cross gifts of food and dren. Thus a yet unpublished book, from Staten Island, a large, open fort with bar­ medicine, the children walked to Petrograd. which this piece is excerpted, was begun.

MAY 1988 15 fill!

Friendships ,, 'll' ''. "

What atifThe qualities in Swarthmoreans that enable friendships among us to en­ dure or to remain memorable, or that underlie our assump­ tions whf§h we meet as strangeiS? After musing at length about the importance of my own, I decided to query alumni. I dis­ covered that, like Swarthmore people themselves, their rela­ tionships with each other re­ veal both diversity and a deeper commonality. For m#ty» enduring friend­ ships provide the connection, continuity, acceptance, and support typically associated with fantily. When Swarthmore friendships fail or prove merely ephemerOI, people express a real sense of loss, almost betrayed! Th is in itse lf demon­ strates the significance of those friendships. In any case the underlying qualities of Swarthmoreans appear to me to remain immu­ table. These include integrity, intellectual curiosity, the ability to d istii^ iish what is impor­ tant, respect for the individual and for diversity, and a feeling of goocfwlfi for any humanistic endeavor. It m a | | ie that alumni of other colleges and universities see similar traits in their fel­ lows, but I haven*! heard them say so. i i t our alumni speak for themselves. (Editors note: In several instances, with the author’s per­ m ission,priginal replies were cut bei^^m of lim ited space ) By Lydia Razran Hooke ’64

Love’s not time’s fool, and neither are Swarthmore rat never stop beginning

Carolyn Mitchell ’74 the one to keep in mind for marrying! On our move to Washington in the late During my years at Swarthmore and even ’50s, Swarthmoreans found us housing, in­ now, none have affected my life as much as troduced us to issues requiring our shoe James Batton ’72 and Vaneese Thomas ’74. leather and attention, pointed out the best We were three perfect strangers whose com­ hills for sledding and the canoe put-in points mon love for music and need for compan­ on the river, and introduced us to playmates ionship in a socially difficult environment and music for our children. Other Swarth­ made us a family that nurtured one another’s more friends tucked into our attic during talents and personal development. Our de­ marches on the Mall, and they warmly cision to collaborate led to eight concerts supported our freshman Christopher’s turn­ during our college years and many musical ing in his draft card, though it also meant his collaborations after college. leaving the College. The now multi-genera­ James pursued a full-time career as a tion friends still come—to fly kites and eat musician and went on to play with some of Hydrox cookies, to head out on visits to the greatest talent in contemporary black Bonnard, to the Canal, and to congressmen, music until his death in November of last to read aloud their new poems (“Un Chien year. When he died, Vaneese and I were Nomme Chat” by Bob Gilkey ’46), or just to saddened, yet filled with joy that our pro­ look under beds in the attic for long ago left- foundly talented friend had lived his life behind belongings. doing what he loved so much, creating beautiful music and making people happy. James was the first to recognize my talent Sarah Shaw Wright ’59 as a songwriter, and now my songs are just In order to keep in touch with both high beginning to be recorded (they are all com­ school and college friends, I helped set up a posed on his piano). Vaneese sings profes­ “round robin”—a group of women who sionally in New York and has just released correspond by sending a letter to the next her first album on Geffen Records, a well- person on a list. Each person adds her letter deserved success. The three of us never had to the packet, so by the time the envelope a class together nor ever discussed our returns to the initial sender, it contains a courses. Yet friendships were forged and letter from each member of the group. The careers built because three people loved initiator removes her letter, puts in a new music and each other in a very special place. one, and the cycle starts over. The Swarthmore Class of ’59 “robin” is still going strong. One woman dropped out; Peggy Bebie Thomson ’43 the remaining seven eagerly look forward to Our kids hoot about it and marvel at it, and the “robin’s” arrival every twelve to eighteen so do we—the everlastingness o f thosefriend­ months. ships embarked upon with a ride on the Almost as interesting to me as the letters Media Wawa West Chester line, a walk up I receive from my six friends is the return of Magill, greetings from Froglegs Isaac Hop­ my own letter; I can see where I was per, framed, in the Parrish East Parlor, and emotionally and otherwise a year previously. a first look at all those classmates who would By saving my letters, I’ve got a sketchy prove to be so comfortable, exciting, fun to family history file that is interesting to reread be with, inspiring through the next forty- No, we don’t trade computer disks yet— eight years and beyond nor even audio- or videotapes, but we are On Third East I felt befriended from the still the same friends who knocked off start. Men, too, were wonderfully approach­ studying every night at 10 p.m. and played able. Imagine finding in freshman week just bridge and talked about life until midnight!

MAY 1988 17 Ed ’30 and Nancy Deane however, to have had an interval in my life Virginia Mussari Bates ’73 Passmore ’30 without roots, when it was easy—inevitable, I took the best part of Swarthmore and my even—to make friends with city mice and Friendship: that great gift tucked into the best friend with me when I left Swarthmore country mice of all descriptions. I was diplomas handed to us by President Ayde- and married him two days later. That friend­ ignorant for years of the various social gulfs lotte. Invaluable! Some of us, now, are ship has endured moving to a city in which that exist for better or worse between X and settled in retirement communities with no we knew not a soul and losing our first-born me, and now we know each other well place for the house parties we once enjoyed after twenty-six months. enough not to care and even sometimes to so much. So for the last two years, we have When Alexis Megan died, the letters that celebrate our differences. reserved four rooms together in Mertz Hall came from Swarthmore friends were the on campus during Alumni Weekend and most helpful part of the process. Those plan to make this a yearly tradition. We Sara Bolyard Chase ’60 letters were amazing—they knew exactly parade with the Garnet Sages, very proud of There does seem to be some special bond what we needed to hear, with no triteness. Swarthmore and of the lasting friendships that the Swarthmore experience generates, made there. especially among those of us in the same class who return to reunite after some years. Douglas Perkins ’80 Anonymous Many of us have commented on it during Although it is hardly necessary to write and since our 25th reunion. I have had about Swarthmore friendships (their endur­ I have known these people for half my life, letters and calls that strike resonant chords ing quality speaks for itself), I ’m glad some­ and there’s something very special about from classmates with whom I became reac­ one is doing so—simply as a reminder to such long-term friendships. quainted (I don’t want to sound effusive stay in touch with each other. Our college A factor that I think contributes to their about this, but I am not the only one who has friendships are so steady and comfortable, it durability is interconnectedness. Swarth­ been noticing it). Maybe I am some sort of is all too easy to take them for granted more was, as we sometimes complained, a special case—I felt like such an underdog I used to wonder why I barely stay in tightly-knit little world. Though it may while there— only West Virginian, only one contact with one high school friend, while a sometimes have been claustrophobic, and it who had never been to Europe (or s o l felt), week rarely passes that I don’t hear from at certainly didn’t allow much privacy, the only one who had never heard o f sour cream least two or three college friends. Swarth­ multiple connections are now a clear-cut ad­ and blintzes, much less bagels and lox. And more alumni still make up more than half of vantage. now how I relish meeting fellow Swarth- my Christmas card list. One obvious reason Looking around my house, I see that moreans and letting them know that, indeed, for the steadfastness of these bonds is the many of the cherished objects I live with are I have achieved recognition, success, status, small and insular nature of the campus reminders of friends from Swarthmore. respect, and am still moving up in my field. culture in which they were formed / think, There sits the beautiful teacup that C Maybe what is going on is that I gained however, that another important reason is bought me at a craft fair. Over there’s a much from “them" while we were fellow “survivor affiliation. ” Swarthmore was not poster showing the place where D and E students at Swarthmore and now am par­ exactly Auschwitz, but most of us experi­ and I went on a three-week camping trip ticularly pleased to be able to show it. enced the horrors o f doing a lot worse there recently. Here’s the batik that B brought back from her travels, and on this wall hangs the brass rubbing, rich in significance, that A gave me back when it cost two months’ spending money to get it framed. Here’s a dried rose that was once part of a birthday gift from Y (it came with a florist’s card saying, “Sentimental message follows”), and I’m wearing a necklace that F gave me when I said I wanted a tangible present of some sort from him. I was singularly naive about many of the differences between people when I was at Swarthmore. Individuals shared the adven­ ture of college as individuals, without much context of family background. Race was a visible factor, but wealth, ethnicity, religion, etc., were played down. I made friends with people first, and discovered, long afterward in some cases, that they differed from me along dimensions that are often important in the adult world. Long term, most people probably need community and roots and have been very much influenced by the community they grew up in. I’m very glad,

18 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN in terms of grades and other achievements Barbara Muller Ornstein ’49 anything about the past. than we had previously. And since being As it must have done for many of us, But most of the friendships I formed at liberated from there, none of us can wait to Swarthmore gave me friends who have been Swarthmore have been remarkably strong show each other constantly how well we’re an integral part of my life regardless of our and enduring and have been an important doing on the outside. whereabouts—and my truest, dearest, life­ part of my life. Some have been continuous P.S.: I don’t play tennis much anymore time friend. The enduringness of the Swarth­ over the almost thirty years since graduation; with my Swarthmore partner, but I did more spirit seems to be translated into others have nearly faded, to be revived again marry her. friendships made there. years later with surprising vigor. What has caught me by surprise many Lucy Rickman Baruch ’42 times is that these friendships never seem to Ruth Wilcox Mahler ’49, I thought you might be interested in ephem­ stop beginning, or changing from acquain­ describing an annual reunion of six friends. eral Swarthmore contacts in far-flung places. tance to friend, and that they are in no way First we had a spirited ten-minute debate The scene was Helsinki, Finland, July limited by the age of the participants. Other over the details o f our history, trying to nail 1981.1 had come away from an international friendships develop slowly over a long pe­ down dates and places. Then the most amaz­ congress still wearing my name badge, show­ riod, often depend on shared activities, and ing thing happened: As we got to talking ing that I was from the United Kingdom. often wane when the activity ends. Meeting about the whole thing, we came to a group Beside me, waiting for the traffic light to another Swarthmorean presents a friendship realization that, whereas some aspects could turn green, was another lady, also wearing already half made, likely to grow rapidly, be described, the phenomenon itself was so a name badge, indicating that she was from and unlikely to end. ephemeral, and the unstructured spontaneity the United States. I asked her where she was of it was so precious, that we didn’t want from, and she replied, “Near Philadelphia, (and I believe we were unanimous) to risk Pennsylvania.” I remarked that I had known Anonymous damaging it by intellectualizing it—even to Philadelphia in the past and wondered My friends from Swarthmore are the center the extent of describing it Sort o f a “kiss the which part. When she said Swarthmore, I of my life. We have a bond that will keep us joy as it flies” consensus. could hardly believe my ears. More co­ together for a lifetime—we managed to endure four long, hard years together at incidence followed. She was Libby Warner, Lydia Razran Hooke ’64 and her husband was Dr. Silas Warner, Swarthmore. Times were pretty rough, and They met in the Business Office at the very psychotherapist on the College campus, some of us were depressed and wondered beginning of freshman orientation and dis­ while my husband is psychotherapist at what we would ever do with our lives, but Brunei University, which is about the same looking back we all agree that we’dprobably covered that they were neighbors in Willets. distance west of London. Small world, you do it a second time if we could plan our One of them had fully expected to join the may say. college years again. Even now, when one of most bohemian, artsiest group the College Not all my questioning of Americans us has a disappointment, we depend on each could provide; the other, in the first few months, showed every sign of becoming abroad brings such responses. But there have other for support, guidance, and counseling. Swarthmore’s attenuated version of a frater­ been enough coincidences for me to feel that I wonder sometimes how we could advance nity girl. Despite some lingering tendencies, there must be a hand of fate somewhere in careers without each other. neither of these things came to pass, and the which brings me together with a Swarthmo- I probably meet or talk with one of my two became close friends. They came from rean in Helsinki or in London. I shall persist Swat friends now at least once a week. highly disparate backgrounds. One was from with my opening question! Conversations seem to sway to Swarthmore, running the gamut from world politics to a New York intellectual family, her father an science to everything else in between, and my immigrant and a professor; she had attended Charles A. Miller ’59 Swat friends are used to this way o f commu­ a public high school more than five times An important reason Swarthmore friend­ nication. It makes life easier. the size of Swarthmore. The other, from an ships have lasted is that we taught each other old, socially prominent family, had spent her so much when we were undergraduates. We early childhood on a ranch in Southern liked what we learned, and we liked how we Susan Barker Gutterman ’59 California; later she was educated by corre­ learned it. So we stayed friends ourselves. Friendships seem to me to be all and every­ spondence in the tropics, finishing up in an One reason we were able to educate each thing that I took away from my four years Eastern prep school. Being of a generation other so well is that the College deliberately at Swarthmore. My serious learning I did at that firmly believed it had sprung full-blown provided us with an immense freedom to home and in high school; going to college from its own forehead, they were sure that learn. That freedom was most pronounced in was my first venture away from home, and this difference in backgrounds had no effect the eight-seminar Honors Program. It should the resulting freedom was more important to whatsoever on their friendship; its only be no surprise, therefore, that one of the me than my studies. I feel now, at age 50 (a function was to act as a source of conversa­ most prominent displays of Swarthmore good time to look back and reflect), that in tional exotica—anecdotes of parental foibles friendship ever has been the alumni effort to my college years I was less equipped for and embarrassing behavior. They were able preserve the Honors Program against ill- academic learning than I have been at any simultaneously to believe that no one of any considered proposals from administrators other time in my life. I was much more intelligence or sensitivity was at all influ­ and faculty, 1985-87. The College should be interested at that time in learning about enced by such trivia as background and to proud o f friendships that began and continue people and their relationships, both with me congratulate themselves smugly on having in such a love for learning. and with each other, than I was in studying transcended differences that they assumed

MAY 1988 19 would have proved insurmountable to their blue, and I never saw them again. I felt hurt, I was living in Paris, both of us were on parents. abandoned. vacation—a long way from Parrish Fourth After college the friendship continued: For fifteen years I had no word from West, where we had lived next door to each When they were two-thirds of a continent those who had been closest to me in college, other as freshmen. We went to a small island apart, they abused the phone lines; later they not a letter, not a postcard, not a phone call. in the Aegean for a week, just to enjoy each were delighted to find themselves in the Most went on to graduate school; I, like a other’s company and catch up on gossip and same area. They saw each other through the few others, entered the work force. Eventu­ the events of our lives. And after that we dissolution of two Swarthmore-bred mar­ ally I left the country and lived abroad for kept in touch by mail and occasionally met riages (each having married someone from many years. I thought, “Well, who cares?” in Paris, where Naomi attended conferences a background more like that of the other), One day in 1977 I was crossing a busy aimed at bringing about peace between the births of four children, and a series of thoroughfare in Athens, Greece, when I saw Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. Through vicissitudes and troubles that even a disinter­ a familiar figure coming toward me. We met her, I got back in touch with a few other ested observer would have acknowledged to in the middle of the street, in traffic, and classmates, and I began to feel that those be more than two people’s fair share. threw our arms around each other. four years had been, after all, a positive Over the years, not only did they come to “Naomi!” “Jackie!” experience in some ways. consider each other to be family, but each Naomi Kies ’62 was living in Jerusalem, When I finally joined other classmates for of their families welcomed the other into its my 25th reunion (in spite of my painful circle. They took pleasure in being lovely to memories), we were delighted to find that with the stresses of college life removed, we each other’s mothers, both of whom were The friendship between Paul Gottlieb ’56, could relate to one another with greater ease widowed. While they did not exactly avoid Hugh Nissenson ’55, and Charles Sullivan and express the affection that had begun to introducing the two, they made no positive ’55 has already been documented in the grow among us when were students. Dor­ efforts to do so. After all, they felt, there was March 1984 Bulletin article “The Reunion” mant friendships, I discovered, can be re­ unlikely to be much common ground, and (reprintedfrom The New York Times Maga­ vived on the basis of a shared experience who wanted to listen to critical post mor- zine). This relationship has borne further that affected so much of what we did and tems. Finally, more than twenty-five years literary fruit in a poem about a jointly owned how we lived afterward. after they met, their mothers were in town house in France written by Sullivan for As for Naomi, dead of leukemia at the age at the same time, and a dinner party was Gottlieb’s birthday. —LH arranged. The evening was pleasant, and of 44, we are trying to keep her memory conversation flowed; after all, these were Charles Sullivan ’55 alive by establishing a fund in her name at highly civilized people. But the younger Swarthmore to finance two projects that we L’Ermitage women were surprised to hear mutual visits hope will further the ideals for which she —For Paul Gottlieb being discussed. On the way home, one worked so hard all her life. It is as much a This venerable house mother exclaimed, “What a fascinating memorial to our friendship as a contribution Of friends, this garden woman, so accomplished, yet so charming!” to the causes she supported. Where the village ends, The other said to her daughter, “She cer­ [Editor’s note: The Naomi Kies Memorial These trees with quiet lives Fund projects are detailed on page 47 o f the tainly is a lovely person—what a hard time That reach from Roman stones Bulletin./ she’s had in the last few years. She’s a true To anybody’s skies—all are here lady, isn’t she?” Now each mother invariably Today and will be here tomorrow, asks for news of the other. It doesn’t matter who is where, Barbara Wetzel Kaspar ’38 Or how, or why, or when— Swarthmore friendships are bound to be Helen I. Lom "69, describing a re­ All real and indestructible special because we all chose Swarthmore s union spanning classes from 1943 to 1986, Because they are a dream, particular personality for similar reasons. in Geneva, Switzerland. And taking any part of them— Most o f us who attended Swarthmore could It was so interesting to compare the different A pear, a rose, some watercress have chosen several other kinds o f colleges, paths our lives and work had taken and, at Beside the stream—is no less but we didn’t. the same time, to share a common past Natural than breathing air. I was struck, at recent meetings of the Class of 1938, by the phenomenon of how (Swarthmore) and present (Geneva). Need­ Breathing air, and coming back simple and delightful it was to renew old less to say, a great time was had by all, and To life, and putting in as much friendships. I hadn’t seen some members of the opinion was unanimous that an “encore ” Of any element as one takes out— our reunion committee since 1938 but rec­ was certainly called for. This has been the cycle of such places Since the stones were soft. At night, ognized them immediately as friends whom Before we close the doors, I look aloft I would be happy to be close to. I even called Jacqueline Lapidus ’62 To count imaginary stars, and write one o f them the other day just to talk. Points Four years of shared suffering—mind-bog­ My hasty verses in a book, and taste of view are often the same. Interests are compatible. One can assume certain things gling assignments, all-night papers, terrifying The final sweetness of the garden about a Swarthmore alumnus or alumna. exams, awakening sexuality, political acti­ And the wine, and put them all away We can laugh about the same things, and vism, civil disobedience, breaking rules, ach­ To give them back as presents mourn the same things for the same reasons, ing hearts, the final hurdle of finals—and On your next birthday. then it was over. After graduation my and often work toward the same goals Swarthmore friends disappeared into the because of philosophies we were gently

20 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN taught at Swarthmore. We remember stealthily climbing the lapse of time. When I meet recent or older Seven years after our graduation, I met a water tower, the presence of a cow and (at alums, I know that our common college Swarthmore alumnus in California, We were another time) a “stiff ’ from the lab in un­ experience can be the springboard for inter­ so compatible that I married him! usual places. esting conversations and exchanges o f ideas. For me, the contact with these women (Classes ’29 through ’33) gives me a real Laurie C. Nelson ’77 Bruce M. Bush ’70 sense o f continuity in a life that has included Swarthmore relationships, I believe, crystal­ I do have Swarthmore friends now, though two husbands and five living areas. they are not people I felt were my closest lize at the moment of separation, and then friends at the time (and some are not my Ellen Swartz Pratt ’20 there is no further growth in the given generation). friendship, either positive or negative. Swarthmore Friendship I have little feeling of continuity with my I think this characteristic is peculiar to How many times we hesitate life at Swarthmore. It was a lonely and Swarthmore relationships; my sense is that to show throughout the years difficult time for me, though that was mostly because these relationships are formed and the warm affection that we have the fault of the times and of myself, not of initially nurtured in a hothouse atmosphere, for Friends both far and near. the College. The friendships did not last, and they therefore require a special and similar It is great to have reunions the feeling of community did not last (in set of conditions if future growth is to occur. and the Swarthmore College Bulletin fact, it did not survive the anarchy and We are so exposed and emotionally vulner­ to help us keep in touch trauma of the spring of 1970). I was glad to able at Swarthmore, due to the relentless with Swarthmore College friends. graduate and get away, and only now am I academic pressure and the social insulation There is Happiness in countless things. going back to try and see what bits and of the place, that friendships formed there, There is Joy in passing pleasures, pieces of the past I still connect with. It was if they are to change and grow with the but Friendship is without a doubt a vivid four years, after all. participants, are especially needy of physical the best of all Life’s treasures. contact in a Swarthmore-like environment. Without this element, the friendships are Elinor Brecht Enterline ’29 Cornelia Clarke Schmidt ’46 deprived of their essential nutrient (i.e., A group o f Swarthmore College friends has Our Swarthmore education, both inside and shared suffering and anxiety), and they been assembling for lunch twice a year for outside the classroom, has given each o f us cannot change. about six years. Both of my college room­ an intellectual curiosity, a yearning for ex­ Another way to put it is this: Swarthmore mates are gone, but these friends still enjoy cellence, and wide and varied areas of friendships, being forged out of an extraor­ each other’s company now and then, with interest. When lam with old college friends, dinary anxiety, require a similarly extreme plenty o f reminiscing and reporting on recent I know that together we can easily pick up set of influences if change in their essential changes in our lives. from our last visit in spite o f the intervening nature is to be effected. The special events that we routinely expect to cause change in our lives, such as career achievement, mar­ riage, or parenthood, are not nearly momen­ tous enough to work any change in the unique nature of a Swarthmore friendship. Whether this ends up being good or bad for Intramural sports o the friendship depends on the state of the relationship at the moment of separation. It is, perhaps, unfortunate that Swarthmoreans can leave college and change and mature, but their relationships with each other are frozen forever.

i i i î;*> ' 3? v- i i-i-ïv-*" *i Warren L. (Tuck) Forsythe ’65 ' ' ■V.v’*v <- * ♦ ?!>>*; In some o f the more adventurous caving and climbing activities that the Outing Club $ 0 m § i n # undertook, my life literally depended from í » É p m í ^ i u minute to minute upon my camaraderie with fellow clubbers. Similarly my education at Swarthmore depended at least as much upon the interaction with these other scholar- adventurers as it did upon what transpired B p W within the confines o f a classroom. It was a privilege to be able to sit around the camp fire with them a quarter-century ago, and it still feels good today to get together once m m m m m again with old friends and their families Í Í | É ; around the camp fire. H h M John S. Thomson ’43 My first Swarthmore friend was someone I never knew in the context of the campus. Ted Herman ’35, fresh from a year at Columbia Teachers’ College, caught my attention and strong affection when he was on the faculty and I a student at the Shang­ hai American School in China. He coached ♦* -jÿj soccer. (Our yell: “Baby in a high chair/ Who put him up there?/ Ma, Pa, Siss Boom Bah./ Chinese All-Stars/ How do we treat them?/ Like oysters/ We eat them!/ Rah, Rah, Rah!”) And he taught English in an enthusiastic way that was challenging. One ftS W X f1 day he entered the class late, after we were all seated. He stomped in, slammed down his books, strode over to the window, where he sighed and looked out. He then seated himself at his desk and, in the stunned silence, said, “All right, class, write me a description of what you’ve just seen.” I was fascinated by teaching of such zest and, proud of our friendship, chose his college, Swarthmore. It was the first truly indepen­ dent decision I’d made, and it has shaped my life ever since. 4 k

[Editor’s note: Lydia Hooke holds a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the University o f Colorado and serves as a Russian language More than six hundred students participate each year in the eclectic sports offered translator and editor for NASA. She lives in by the intramural program (top to bottom: M ark Breitenberg, assistant professor A lexandria, Virginia.] o f English literature, Phil Weiser ’90, Cedric Brown ’90, and Sarah Horr ’88). By Phil Weiser VO offer fitness, fun, and the good fight

The game is not going gentle into that final it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you buzzer. Losing 66-65 with ten seconds on the play.” Golub added that the first-year team, clock, the (Swat) Sixers call a time-out. Their consisting of five faculty members and three best shooter has just fouled out, and each spouses, will be back next year for another player struggles for breath. The team captain, run. who has not left the game since the opening K m Mark Breitenberg, assistant professor of tip-off, is exhausted but tells his troops to get English literature, plays on a competitive him the ball in the left comer. team of students and cafeteria workers. Brei­ The point guard receives the inbounds tenberg reports that “people don’t think of me pass, drives the lane looking to the right side, MIND as a member of the faculty; they just see me and passes left to the captain. With one as one of the guys, and that’s how I like it. I second remaining, the captain shoots from enjoy the chance to ‘sweat it out’ so much that just behind the three-point line. His perfect it is not rare for me to stay around and play shot hits nothing but net, and the Sixers has strongly encouraged minority students to three or four games in a day,” he explains. capture the intramural championship for the participate). Prudente also emphasizes that Student organizations are another source of second year in a row. captaining an intramural team gives students teams. Each fraternity sponsors a team in Such intramural drama is one reason why an opportunity to develop their leadership basketball; these three teams are joined by an Bob Williams, professor and chair of the skills, noting that all the good teams have Asian Studies team, as well as a few dormi­ Department of Physical Education and Ath­ active captains. tory hall teams. letics, views sports as more than varsity As interest in different sports waxes and Although students no longer organize the athletics. Williams believes that the Athletic wanes, Prudente adapts to the desires of the program, they are still responsible for referee­ Department should offer a broad-based ath­ students. He always offers a variety of sports ing the contests. Michael Romero ’88 was a letic program for all students. He applauds the and organizes the programs that attract the mainstay referee in basketball, often scram­ intramural program and credits Associate most interest. Softball once drew the most bling to referee four games in a night. Thrust Professor and Coach Ernie Prudente for its participation, with twenty-eight teams rang­ into the role because of a leg injury, he enjoys success. ing from the Buildings and Grounds Team to the job in spite of the fact that referees are in Before 1982 the intramural program was the Delta Upsilon Team, but interest has short supply. Romero says that “people have managed solely by students. Prudente saw leveled off recently. Volleyball, now the most no right to complain about calls if they won’t that the program sometimes had difficulty popular sport, currently boasts fifteen teams. referee themselves.” A t getting court time and equipment from the Prudente has expanded the Athletic Department and subsequently vol­ realm of intramurals to include unteered to take over the program. faculty, staff, and alumni. The Under Prudente’s management, the num­ alumni basketball team, Team j0mf. ber of students who participate in intramurals Reality, was at the top of the < ' m has soared above six hundred, nearly half the competitive league until Ameri­ student population. To the core intramural ca’s team snapped its two-year sports of volleyball, basketball, and softball, undefeated streak. The competi­ Prudente has added soccer (indoor and out­ tion between these two teams m door), a tennis tournament, squash, miniature will intensify when they meet in golf, and badminton. Each sport has two the tournament finals to deter­ leagues, competitive and noncompetitive. mine who wins the T-shirts and Each noncompetitive team must include at the right to play the champion of least one female, and volleyball teams must the Haverford intramural pro­ field three males and three females at all times. gram. Prudente regrets that more women don’t The faculty volleyball team, participate but jokes that “the guys are too the Over the Hill Gang, has been ugly.” true to its name, winning only Prudente’s philosophy of intramurals is one of its eight games. Team first and foremost to encourage people to captain Steve Golub, associate m have fun playing the game. He also sees professor of economics, responds Ernie Prudente, director o f the intramural program and intramural sports as an opportunity for stu­ to the record by noting that “the associate professor o fphysical education, describes dents to make friends (in this regard Williams team is improving, and after all his view o f sports for students to Hui-Chun Tong ’88.

23 Coach Gomer Davies and his wife Betty Ann, honored at a Swarthmore retirement party, enjoy an anecaoie aescnmng ms cu ,™ .

verything about the man suggests a series of paradoxes tuned, like “He would take his wrestlers through the the wide-ranging notes of an aria, long, connecting tunnel to the new gym. to a single consonant voice. EAnd nothing about Gomer Davies, retir­ ...It was a rite. The wrestlers had the ing coach of wrestling (thirty-six years) and longest, quietest, darkest walk imaginable; women’s softball (eleven years), can be they had a weird way of concentrating. taken in itself. The broken-nosed hardness of his face—he spent his youth in the coal “... To the spectators they always looked mining country of northern Pennsylvania— as if they had been brainwashed in a is softened by the sensuous spirit of a bon dungeon and sent out on some grim task vivant who relishes fine cuisine, reveres the great operatic tenors (his voice quivers with into the real world. They had. ” emotion when he remembers the lyrical —John Irving tone of Benjamino Gagio, a “beautiful tech­ THE 158-POUND MARRIAGE nician” of the Caruso era), and celebrates foreignness for its color and mystery alone. Davies probably couldn’t coach for one of the great wrestling powers mentioned by Irving in his third novel—Oklahoma State, say, or Iowa State—simply because of his attitude. Out there, says one of Irving’s By Roger Williams characters, “all the great wrestlers have tun­ nels of their own—long, dark, empty walks through their long, dark, empty heads.” Davies’s tunnel, by comparison, is one of and the tunnel of light K"•Davies

light, thought, wonder and sentiment, even vies recalls with a smile, that there is only letes. Take the student who tried out for the eccentricity, qualities he also cultivates in his winning and losing—no second place. softball team in her freshman year. “To use a chauvinistic allusion, she threw like a girl, wrestlers. “I think some of my best times have Consider his politics. “I’m a registered occurred in defeat when they’ve offered Davies explains. “But by her senior year she Republican,” he reveals matter-of-factly, their all,” he admits frankly. “For all of us, was captain of the most winning team we’ve “have been all my life. This will probably it’s a matter of whether you’ve done your ever had, and you wouldn’t recognize her upset some Swarthmore people since Duka­ best. Sure, I can understand Lombardi’s throwing in from the outfield. It was pure kis [Michael ’55, presidential candidate] is point, and I think our athletes have to be and simple hard work, and that’s thrilling for an alum, but my favorite candidate for the serious—fun is a by-product.” me. ’88 election is Jesse Jackson. I’d love to see But winning, in Davies’s mind, is more “I had a student who came from a funky a Dukakis-Jackson ticket, but I don’t think than earning the most runs or the most place I won’t name, and he had only two words: ‘Yup,’ and ‘Nope,’ ” Davies recalls of that will happen, which is sad.” points. “Too much wrestling makes a dull His expression changes suddenly from person,” he observes. “This is selfish on my another coaching success. “After his associa­ deadpan to deadpan, the signature cast of a part, but I want every one of my athletes tion with the wrestling program for four wry humorist. “I know I wouldn’t vote for involved in other things—music, art, theater, years, you couldn’t shut him up. The wres­ tlers around him, as well as other students, a Republican,” he adds. whatever. If my own concern is only wres­ Here, perhaps, is the solitary, separatist tling or softball performance, then there’s really influenced him. It shows that educa­ kind of thinking required of a great wrestling something wrong with me, and besides, I’d tion often occurs between these bright peo­ coach. That Davies may be the only regis­ be bored up a tree.” Or lost in a dark tunnel, ple and each other. tered Republican in the world to favor and Davies will have none of that for him­ “One thing I’ve taken from Swarthmore publicly a Jackson candidacy is apparently self or his people. is an understanding of what real education something he doesn’t intend to worry about. Not surprisingly, Davies’s anecdotes are is all about, even though I’ve been on the Suffused with the morning sun only days more likely to describe the development of fringes in an academic sense. Just seeing before Davies’s last game as a coach, the his charges than they are to relate the statis­ what this environment can do for people, walls of his small office in the Lamb-Miller tics of win columns and record-setting ath­ what they can do for themselves here—I’m Field House are covered with the photo­ graphs of youths whose vying shouts have long since echoed into silence, except in Davies’s mind. On their behalf—the base­ ball players he once coached, wrestlers, softball players—he grows loquacious. “This,” he states definitively, gesturing out the window, “is an intellectual bastion, and these students are the lifeblood of this College.” He doesn’t need to add that last year the median board score of freshmen admitted to the wrestling program was 1460. “They are scholar athletes, and that means they work under extremely difficult circum­ stances, juggling their lives in several direc­ tions. They’re eclectic people. “Now something like wrestling, it’s eso­ teric. I’m looking for adjectives to affix to wrestlers—they’re nonconformists, more conservative in some ways. They have to have self-esteem, confidence, toughness. When they walk out on that mat, they’re alone, and it’s either all theirs, or not.” Former athletes and students o f Gomer Davies, whose thirty-six-year career as coach o f Which is not to say, like the infamous wrestling, women’s softball, and baseball concludes this spring, gather to express their football coach Vince Lombardi whom Da­ affection and gratitude for his imaginative coaching style. 25 a little envious of that, never having had the freestyle wrestling common among Euro­ same opportunity. But I’m happy for them.” peans, Russians, and Cubans that, in Da­ And to prove it, Davies has done every­ vies’s words, “revolutionized the sport. The ups and downs of thing in his power to enhance that opportu­ “The standing portion of freestyle wres­ major preferences nity for his athletes. His crowning achieve­ tling has helped us, although in freestyle you ment for the wrestling team, as he sees it, is get no points for getting out from under­ Like fluctuating stocks, history an annual program he developed in 1982 to neath, and you get penalized if your back is up, and so are sociology/ let team members travel and wrestle coinci- touches the mat. But some of the defensive anthropology and psychology. dently during the winter holiday. The pro­ wrestling underneath is the most exciting, English, mathematics, and gram provides them with fierce competition with people doing shoulder rolls and that political science, on the other and rigorous conditioning while challenging kind of thing. To me, offensively and defen­ hand, are down. them, as Swarthmore students, to engage a sively, you get the totality with our folk- Statistics compiled by the foreign culture on its own terms. style.” Registrar’s Office on applica­ A handout summarizing the program Students, of course, did more than wres­ tions for majors, comparing carries an opening remark characteristic of tle, as they have on every journey led by the classes of 1989 and 1990, Davies: “The opera has the attainable high Davies. They ate, too, a pleasure most show a marked change in C. Six years of four high Cs—Competition, wrestlers never experience. “This weight re­ curricular preferences. Culture, Camaraderie and Cuisine—have duction so common in programs, where kids The most significant in­ been a hallmark of the Swarthmore wres­ suck a lot of weight, deters some good crease occurred in the Depart­ tling experience.” wrestlers in college,” he explains. “More ment of Psychology. In the Students joining the 1987-88 trip traveled often than not we wrestle at natural weight, Class of 1989, twenty-two stu­ to Venezuela, where they experienced the which means fewer people drop out of our dents (7.1 percent of the class) program.” applied for a major, while this Davies’s self-described conservatism ap­ year forty-one (12.3 percent) pears not to apply to coaching, where his of the Class of 1990 applied. concern for athletes and his view of tradi­ In history, twenty-one stu­ tional practices exceeds the parochial stric­ dents in the Class of 1989 (6.8 tures of mat or diamond. percent) applied, as compared “Let me tell you a little about my conser­ to thirty-two students (9.6 vatism, this thing ‘Obey Thy Father,’” he percent) in the Class of 1990. says, smiling. “I went into the army when I Nineteen members of the was pretty young, after my first year in col­ Class of 1990 (5.7 percent) lege, because the people my father worked applied for a major in soci­ with felt it was totally wrong for people like ology/anthropology, up from me not to go. So I listened to him. four (1.3 percent) of the Class “I went to basic, then into artillery, and of 1989. I knew there were better ways to do this than listening to a howitzer, so I got into a six-week band school because I could play the tuba. “They sent me to Europe, but I didn’t want to get up at 6 every morning to blow reveille, so when I saw an ad for army The largest decrease in the entertainment, I auditioned. I became a number of applicants for singer and dancer, performing all over Eu­ majors was in the Department rope, mostly for GIs, from 1946-48. Once I of Mathematics. Nine students even sang in the Mozarteum. I’m a tenor (2.7 percent) in the Class of nut, and I spent every free moment I had at 1990 applied, while the Class the opera.” of 1989 had nineteen (6.2 If there’s a lesson in his story, it may be percent). that conservatism, animated by an educated Last year’s most heavily en­ curiosity, might lead to something else. “I’ve rolled department—English— always been a free spirit, introspective and dropped this year. Last year searching; I’m like that,” he reflects. “But I forty-eight students applied for know that order and discipline can result in a major, making up 15.6 per­ freedom, whether in art or in sport. I think cent of the Class of 1989, in our wrestling program the order and while this year thirty-three discipline can follow you right out of here.” (9.9 percent) of the Class of He pauses, perhaps to consider his thirty- 1990 applied. The Political six-year tunnel leading, so soon, out. “My Science Department decreased Eleanor “Pete” Hess, associate chair o f Physi­ people, very possibly, have had an easier from thirty-nine students (12.7 cal Education and Athletics, pins a boutonniere time adjusting to the world outside,” he percent) to 34 students (10.2 to the lapel o f the feted coach Gomer Davies. suggests. A percent).

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN £COLLEGE

Eight new members join New York, Inc., an organiza­ the Board of Managers tion that protects the rights Eight new members have and promotes the welfare of been elected to the Swarth- children. Scheuer previously more Board of Managers: served on the Board of Man­ Mary Schmidt Campbell ’69, agers from 1976 to 1986. Graham 0. Harrison ’47, Singer is a Washington, James C. Hormel ’55, Avery D.C., attorney with the law P. Rome ’69, Marge Pearlman firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Scheuer ’48, Daniel M. Singer Graham O. Harrison ’47 Rosalind Chang Whitehead ’58 Shriver & Jacobson, where he ’51, Sally A. Warren ’65, and has worked since 1958. He is Rosalind Chang Whitehead a member of the executive ’58. Singer and Warren were committee of the Washington nominated by the Alumni Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Association as Alumni Man­ Rights Under Law and the agers. board of directors of Univer­ Campbell is currently New sity Legal Service. Singer also York City commissioner of serves as a member of the cultural affairs. Appointed by governing council and the Mayor Ed Koch last year to Sally A. Warren ’65 James C. Hormel ’55 executive committee of the replace Bess Myerson, Camp­ American Jewish Congress. bell directs the city’s $133.3 Warren, a self-employed million budget for cultural consultant in New York City, events, supervising institutions has assisted the American including the Metropolitan Express Bank and helped to Museum of Art and the New restructure credit functions at York Zoological Society. the Global Union Bank. Be­ Harrison serves as chief fore becoming self-employed investment officer at the How­ seven years ago, she was vice ard Hughes Medical Institute president of international sales in Bethesda, Md. Previously Daniel M. Singer ’51 Avery P. Rome ’69 at Salomon Brothers and dep­ he served as president of the uty manager of the First Na­ U.S. Steel Pension Fund. A tional Bank of Boston’s mer­ member of the College’s chant bank in Hong Kong. Alumni Council from 1980 to Warren is past president of the 1983, he is a director of the Alumni Association. General Reinsurance Corpo­ Whitehead is a member of ration and a trustee of the the advisory committee on de­ Property Capital Trust. pression for the National In­ Formerly dean of students stitutes of Mental Health at the University of Chicago (NIMH) and serves on the Law School and an attorney Mary Schmidt Campbell ’69 Marge Pearlman Scheuer ’48 advisory boards of the De­ with a Chicago law firm, partment of Psychiatry of the Hormel is president of Equi- Rome, currently deputy atre Company from 1980 to College of Physicians and Sur­ dex, Inc., a San Francisco in­ editor of the Philadelphia 1982. geons and the Fogarty Inter­ vestment counseling and man­ Inquirer Magazine, previously A New York resident, national Center at NIMH. She agement firm. He is a member was an editor at Intermed Scheuer has worked with the also serves on the board of of the board of directors of Communications and an edi­ New York City school system directors of the Whitehead several public service organi­ torial assistant with Harper’s for more than thirty years. She Charitable Foundation, the zations, including KQED, Magazine. She serves on the has, since 1972, been a board Lucy Chang Foundation, Northern California’s PBS centennial committee of The member of the NYC School Friends of the National affiliate, and National Gay Baldwin School and was a Volunteer Program. She is Library of Medicine, and the Rights Advocates, a public member of the board of direc­ currently president of Citizens’ American Academy of Pedi­ interest law firm. tors of the Philadelphia The- Committee for Children of atrics.

MAY 1988 27 Three retired faculty tirement in 1976, died March members die 17 after a long bout with can­ cer. Three professors emeriti, in­ As an undergraduate, Stet­ cluding two professors of son was named an All-Ameri­ biology and a former director can in soccer and a four-letter of athletics, died during the sportsman. He became a full­ winter. time faculty member in 1939 Mammologist Robert K. and throughout his distin­ Enders, Isaac H. Clothier, Jr., guished career served vari­ Professor Emeritus of Biology ously as head basketball and one of the nation’s leading coach, golf coach, and soccer naturalists, died in his sleep coach, and as executive direc­ January 25 at the age of 88. tor of the Middle Atlantic A specialist in North States College Athletic Con­ American fur-bearing mam­ ference (MASCAC) from mals and the marsupials of 1951-76. Central America, he joined Stetson leaves his wife, the faculty in 1932 and served Jean Weltmer Stetson ’38, his as chairman of the Biology brother, John B. Stetson ’46, Department from 1946-67, two children, two grandchil­ continuing to do research at dren, and a sister. the College following his The Willis J. Stetson, Sr., retirement in 1970. Memorial Fund honors his Among his list of more long and devoted service. than eighty publications is the Luzern G. Livingston, pro­ College joins area designed by the astronomer popular paperback book The fessor emeritus of biology and libraries in National Petrus Apianus in 1540. The Nature of Living Things, writ­ a faculty member from 1938 Library Week exhibit book includes one of the earli­ ten with C. Brooke Worth ’31 until his retirement in 1975, est printed star maps and de­ (deceased) and translated into died on March 20, shortly A manuscript by poet W. H. scribes the path of the comet five foreign languages. before his 83rd birthday. Auden, minutes of seven­ of 1531, later known as Hal­ Born in Iowa and a veteran Credited by Nobel Laureate teenth-century Friends meet­ ley’s comet. of both world wars, Enders David Baltimore ’60 for Balti­ ings, and an astronomical The collection’s two seven­ encouraged hundreds of stu­ more’s introduction to modern work designed for Emperor teenth-century items are both dents to become scholars and biology, “Livy,” as his stu­ Charles V in 1540 are among American: the minutes of the physicians. The Robert K. dents called him, taught all the items loaned by the College Salem, New Jersey, Society of Enders Scholarship, estab­ courses in botany, bacteri­ for the Philadelphia exhibit Friends meetings from 1676 to lished several years ago, and ology, and genetics for many “Legacies of Genius: A Cele­ 1696, documenting the evolu­ the Robert K. Enders Field years. bration of Philadelphia Li­ tion of the Quaker tradition of Research Award, established While studying the tobacco braries.” Sponsored by the discipline, and Thomas Budd’s by former students last spring, mosaic virus, he invented the sixteen member libraries of “Good Order Established in remain permanent testaments Livingston Micropipette Puller the Philadelphia Area Consor­ Pennsylvania and New Jer­ to his service and scholarship. to penetrate and pull fluid tium of Special Collections sey,” a 1685 document that Willis J. Stetson, Sr., ’33, from single cells with uniform Libraries, the exhibit runs was the first piece of printing professor emeritus of physical microscopic pipettes. His de­ until Sept. 25 in the adjoining in Pennsylvania. education and director of ath­ sign continues to be used by galleries of The Historical Items from the nineteenth letics from 1949 until his re­ commercial manufacturers. Society of Pennsylvania and century include an 1840 letter The Library Company of from abolitionist William Philadelphia. Lloyd Garrison to reformer The exhibit, which opened Lucretia Mott and two sil­ last month in conjunction houettes by nineteenth-century with National Library Week, artist August Edouart. features nearly 250 rare books, From the twentieth century, manuscripts, and works of arts items range from a manuscript from the collections of the notebook of W. H. Auden, member libraries. who taught at Swarthmore The Swarthmore items during World War II, to the cover a time span of more 1946 Nobel Peace Prize than 400 years. The oldest is diploma awarded to peace “Astronomicum Caesareum,” activist Emily Greene Balch. E CL E G E

Winter was a chilly to the team’s downfall. Hillier) and second in the 800 Gretchen VandeWalle and season for Garnet teams Senior co-captain Jen Trus- free (Steve Lewis, Dan Tan- junior Penny Berrier turned in cott broke the 1,000-point nenbaum, Courtland Reich- outstanding seasons to lead It was a long, cold winter for mark toward the end of the man, Joe Resovsky). Lewis, the Garnet to another winning Garnet athletes, with only the Tannenbaum, Resovsky, and season. badminton and swimming Kisker finished in the top six VandeWalle dominated the teams posting winning rec­ in two other events and season, consistently swimming ords. earned medals. to victory. She qualified for Badminton (10-2) The Women’s Swimming (8-5) nationals at the MAC cham­ team had an excellent year, as The team concluded a suc­ pionship meet in the 400 indi­ ▼ ▼ it won both the singles and ▼ ▼ ▼ cessful season with a third- vidual medley with a time of doubles championships at the ■ H place finish out of thirteen 4:49.07 but finished one place PAIAW Tournament. Fresh­ teams at the MAC Swimming out of medals. man Karen Hales captured the Championships. Sophomore singles title, while the fresh­ season, ending her career with man duo of Laura Minionis 1,074. The other senior co­ and Mina Kim won the dou­ captain, Annie Fetter, per­ bles title. The team was formed respectably in only her expected to make a strong second season since undergo­ \ showing in the National ing major knee surgery. In the * Championships, held at last two years she has aver­ ( Swarthmore, but a late-season aged 252 points and 78 assists \ injury to nationally ranked as both point and off guard. Hales led to a disappointing Gymnastics (0-7) The seventh-place finish. team had a rough year due to Men’s Basketball (6-19) In injury and a young squad. another rebuilding year under Only two upperclassmen par­ head coach Lee Wimberly, ticipated, with Inger Larsen as the team won four of its last the top scorer on the team. six games (including two Lauren Woodward and Julia against Haverford). Dallman also contributed Senior co-captain Joe heavily to the team this Kosco, a forward, led the season. team in scoring (14.2), re­ bounding (7.9), and minutes played (29.2). He ended the season as the third leading rebounder in the MAC South­ For one brief, glorious day in late March, Parrish lawn (a.k.a. Parrish east Division, finished among Beach) was alive with four-legged visitors. Gabby Sacks ’90 (above) the top five scorers, and was brought along Calvin to soak up the sun, while a ewe and her lamb and named to the MAC winter their friend the cow lazed under the Magill oaks. The farm animals were All-Academic team. Sopho­ part o f a program designed to educate college students about life on more transfer Chris McCabe Israeli kibbutzim. Merle Berman, advisor to the student Jewish group led the team in assists (37) Ruach, arranged for the day-long exhibit. and steals (29). In addition, freshman forward Mike Men’s Swimming (8-3) Greenstone contributed an The men’s team finished its average of 8.4 points and 5.3 most successful year of the rebounds per game. decade. Women’s Basketball Despite a disqualification in (3-22) The women cagers did the 400-medley relay, Swarth­ not have the easiest of seasons. more finished a very respect­ Amid its fourth coaching able second out of twelve change in four years, the Gar­ teams in the MAC champion­ net was unable to play con­ ship meet. The Garnet’s only sistently. Head Coach Michele first- and second-place finishes Sharp and Assistant Debbie came in relays: They placed Lytle tried to offset the previ­ first in the 200 medley (Scott ous years’ lack of recruiting, Kisker, Key van Amir-Aijo- but the shortage of players led mand, Kevin Porter, Mark G E

the skylights evoked a strange Summer sleuthing using atmosphere that was comple­ Swarthmore skills which sounded just fine to mented by silk bows atop uncovers 17th-century me. And then came my first each painting. Beautiful tapes­ mysteries assignment: Find the birth tries hung behind maritime date of William Cartwright, paintings, and dried flower Last autumn I returned to an actor, bookseller, and Roy­ arrangements accented every London to attend the opening alist, who in 1686 made Dul­ tabletop. of a unique exhibit: the be­ wich College a beneficiary of The exhibit provided a sur­ quest of William Cartwright his estate and art collection. viving inventory of the period to the Dulwich Picture Gal­ Needless to say, I was sur­ smiled weakly. unusual in its range and mag­ It wasn’t until I was in the lery. As a research intern for prised that this information nitude: Subjects varied from the gallery, I had devoted my hadn’t already been discov­ thick of the research that I genre to portraiture, from reli­ previous summer to Cart­ ered—and that Cartwright’s realized to what degree gious to maritime. The tem­ Swarthmore’s rigors had pre­ wright, pouring over dusty servants had stolen all but the perament of the collection seventeenth-century parish seventy-nine remaining paint­ pared me to tackle such a job. offers both a clear idea of the registers to piece together his ings before they reached Dul­ The processes of my academic kinds of painting available to checkered biography. wich, alleging eleven years’ training had indeed sunk in. a keen, although not exces­ The first time I met the gal­ worth of unpaid wages—but I With the pertinacious investi­ sively wealthy collector in lery staff, the director seemed agieed enthusiastically. As I gation of footnotes, construc­ mid-seventeenth-century Lon­ ominously straight-laced, al­ was packing my case and get­ tive questioning, and the ac­ don, and a telling reflection of quired “Yankee” ingenuity put though the keeper was a bit ting ready to go, the keeper the man himself. more approachable. matter-of-factly admitted that to work, the birth date was All in all, I was pleased to I learned I was to work in no scholar had ever located found and reported—to the see how well everything had various resource centers like that date. elation of Nicola, the keeper. come together and to realize That experience behind me, the Guildhall Library and the “Good luck,” she said. I how much I had learned I felt prepared to confront the about the field without be­ rest of the summer’s work. Al­ coming disenchanted. In these though there were dry spells, times of financial strain, it is when I would pass entire days absolutely necessary for art in the midst of musty books, institutions to form working letters, and registers without relationships with corporate finding anything, they would businesses who are able to always be balanced by a long- fund such exhibits. Cart- awaited flood of information. wrights’s collection was no Perseverance was the key. exception. The mystique of omni­ In a letter home, I reflected science that had always sur­ on the summer: There really rounded museums and gal­ isn’t any such thing as a free leries, I gradually discovered, lunch—politicking is every­ was really the result of much where—one of the many detective work. By summer’s things I need to keep in mind. end we had uncovered a pro­ Gradually, my idealistic digious amount of material. I Swarthmorean notion of the departed for the States know­ impervious, omnipotent art ing that I had found a possible world is dissolving— we all career direction—and being a knew it would Surprisingly, senior, that was a nice thing to however, I do not find these know. revelations depressing. That’s The exhibition opening in probably because I ’ve been in­ November was all that I troduced to them in a very hoped it would be. Bits and positive atmosphere where I pieces of the art-historical and could see the good things that biographical information we come from such a synthesis, had found fleshed out both the and that makes all the dif­ catalogue and the exhibit ference. cards. The paintings were Oh yes, the birth date: hung one above the other in rooms that re-created the inte­ Cartwright, we now know, riors of seventeenth-century was born in 1606. galleries. A light gauze over —A. J. Rhodes ’88

30 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN The campaign comes have been more understand­ home ing, more sympathetic, more Surrounded by the home­ sensitive, and was nice enough grown comfort of old friends to give me a D-minus to get —teachers, classmates, and me out of the class before I coaches—and a Lang Audi­ failed.” The crowd responded torium covered with poster- with laughter and cheers. size archival photos of the Remembering his early Duke in the days of peach political work to unseat a fuzz and county politics, “very tough, and as I recall it, Democratic presidential candi­ not a particularly savory, date Michael Dukakis ’55 Republican county machine received an emotional greeting that used to run this place,” from some 600 well wishers Dukakis concluded his on a mid-April return to address with a simple offer to campus. return. “If you’ll have me,” he In informal remarks, Duka­ said, “I’d love to come back at A bo ve: Professor Emeritus Roland Pennock and D ukakis share kis described his undergradu­ a Swarthmore commencement a little physics humor. Below: Members o f the singing group 16 ate experience as “the best as president.” Feet serenade the crowd as part o f the evening’s entertainment years of my life” and received on stage a Swarthmore base­ ball cap, jacket, and a “Duke ’88” track shirt from his one­ time track coach James Miller. But the most animated moment in the evening cere­ monies occurred when J. Roland Pennock, Richter Pro­ fessor Emeritus of Political Science, presented Dukakis with a physics book to com­ memorate the now legendary grade of D-minus that prompted the young activist to give up a premed program and study political science. According to Dukakis, his physics professor “couldn’t PHOTOS BY EVAN WITTENBERG '91

MAY 1988 U.S.S.R. would reflect the ethnic composi­ tion of the Soviet Union. Letters This means that if Swarthmore is “to host two or three” Soviet students, then certainly one of them should be an Azerbaidzhani, or DUKAKIS DEFENSE noncancelable disability insurance. a Latvian, or a Tadzhik, or a member of any TO THE EDITOR: Both this new AIDS testing policy and other non-Russian nationality of the U.S.S.R. In a February letter to the editor, John the foster-care policy were developed with By the same token, the American Collegiate Whyte ’74 criticized Larry Elveru’s article the help of experts in both the public and Consortium for Academic Exchange should (July 1987) on Gov. Michael Dukakis. private sectors. They represent years of care­ make sure that American students do not all Gov. Dukakis, Dr. Whyte stated, “ignores ful thought by community, academic, and end up in Moscow or Leningrad, but that the valuable input of the public and his own government leaders. Unfortunately, Dr. about half of them attend the fine Soviet expert staff in designing policy” on foster Whyte’s letter ignores this fact and misrep­ universities in such picturesque and historic care and AIDS. Yet, Dr. Whyte himself resents Gov. Dukakis’s policies. cities as, for example, Alma-Ata, Lvov, overlooks important facts related to these CHRISTOPHER EDLEY, JR., ’73 Kiev, Riga, Tallin, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Uzhgo­ two issues. Issues Director, Dukakis for President rod, or Yerevan. The foster-care policy established by Gov. Cambridge, Mass. If it is not too late to take my suggestions Dukakis is not anti-gay, anti-lesbian, or anti­ into account, I am sure such simple require­ single parent. It is not an attempt to discrimi­ AIDS QUESTIONS ments of fairness would make the student nate against “oppressed minorities.” Rather, TO THE EDITOR: exchange much more meaningful and would the policy reflects a genuine attempt to I am writing to express my dismay over contribute to making the world more stable provide the best possible care for the 6,500 the AIDS article in the February issue of the not just over the next decades, but for a long foster children in the commonwealth. Bulletin. My dismay is not over your decision time to come. In brief, the foster-care policy states that, to print the article, but over the parochial OLEKSA-MYRON BILANIUK all things being equal, children should be and limited view of this epidemic that was Centennial Professor of Physics placed first with relatives; then, with married taken by the panelists. The basic assumption couples who have prior parenting experience is that AIDS is a sexually transmitted dis­ POWERFUL CHANGES and time available to care for foster children. ease. This is only a small part of the truth. TO THE EDITOR: In cases where such families are not available For the past year the most common mode Would you have printed Michael Hall’s or where a child has special needs or prob­ of transmission has not been sexual but suggestion to “throw some beautiful blonds lems that would not be best served by such infected needles. This mode of transmission [sic] into the next freshman class” (“Powerful a placement, another home may be an has had a devastating effect on impoverished Changes,” February) if he had urged, in­ appropriate placement. The policy recog­ black and Hispanic neighborhoods. The stead, “let in more light-skinned people nizes such cases and authorizes their ap­ ethical issues this raises were not even men­ because they’re nicer to look at than dark- proval. tioned by the panelists invited to the campus. skinned ones”? Somehow I doubt it. Swarth­ Clearly this is not, as Dr. Whyte implies, We now see fit to have condoms freely more goes to great lengths—so we’re told— a rigid policy based merely on the “personal distributed in many places. What about the to help its students be non-normative, to be beliefs” of the governor. These are reason­ ethical issue of making sterile needles freely “sensitive” to the biased positions from able, flexible guidelines that are designed to available as well? Closely coupled is the which we each look at the world. But Hall’s provide loving, nurturing homes—prefer­ ethical issue of decriminalizing recreational comment made him look stupefyingly un­ ably with siblings—for foster children. In drug use. It seems legitimate to ask why aware of his own (and since when do we addition, Dr. Whyte failed to mention that these issues were not addressed. unironically boast about having “performed when the Massachusetts Legislature tried to BENJAMIN W. WHITE ’42 better than 85 percent of my peers,” as if any narrow the foster-care policy by making the Belvedere-Tiburón, Calif. such measure were available, meaningful, or placement of foster children in gay and desirable at Swarthmore?). In a future I am lesbian households illegal, Mike Dukakis RUSSIANS ONLY? still dumb enough to hope for, boys’ in-jokes vetoed the legislation. TO THE EDITOR: about women and the ways in which they As for AIDS policies in Massachusetts, Because I have long insisted that a broad are “supposed” to make themselves attrac­ Mike Dukakis has worked closely with the exchange of students between the U.S.S.R. tive to men will be met with the same em­ gay and lesbian community to develop the and the U.S.A. is essential for creating barrassed, disapproving silence that now most comprehensive AIDS education pro­ mutual trust between the two countries, I greets racist remarks—at least in public. gram of any state in the nation. The com­ have been happy to read in the February KIRSTEN K. GRUESZ ’86 monwealth mailed a clear, frank, bilingual issue of the Bulletin that our College plans New Haven, Conn. AIDS brochure to every residence in the to take part in such an exchange. state and sent copies of the surgeon general’s At the same time, I am distressed to learn PRAISEWORTHY report to thousands of community leaders. that the College plans to accept only Russian TO THE EDITOR: The AIDS testing regulations to which students, and thus will be discriminating Just a quick note to applaud the February Dr. Whyte refers were issued last Sep­ against Armenian, Estonian, Kazakh, Uz­ issue of the Alumni Bulletin. tember; they made Massachusetts one of bek, and all the other non-Russian students Superb articles. Great color. Informative only two states in the nation to totally ban of the U.S.S.R. I was hoping that Swarth- as it is attractive! HIV testing for health insurance and the more, as one of the movers of the exchange, Congratulations to all who worked on it. only state to impose detailed and compre­ would make an effort to ensure that the FRED A. HARGADON hensive restrictions on testing for life and ethnic mix of the exchange students from the New York, N.Y.

MAY 1988 57 SWARTHMORE May 1988/Second-class postage paid at Swarthmore, PA 19081 and additional mailing offices.

Alumni Weekend June 3-5,1988

Join the lion and the wild kangaroo* — and your classmates— for the parade of reunion classes, lectures by two members of the faculty, tours of the campus (buildings or plantings), “Carmina Burana” in concert by alumni, open house at the Black Cultural Center, front-lawn sitting with old friends. And more! *Venerable tradition from Hamburg sh ow s

Alumni College You are invited to participate again in the intellectual excitement of a Swarthmore classroom. Study either “Central America” or June 1-3,1988 “The American Garden” with all the joy of discovery and none of the pain of final exams. For more information about Alumni Weekend or Alumni College, write the Alumni Office, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081 or phone 215-328-8402.