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WESTOVER
Garnet Books
Early Connecticut Silver, 1700–1840
by Peter Bohan and Philip Hammerslough
Introduction and Notes by Erin Eisenbarth
The Old Leather Man
by Daniel DeLuca
Westover: Giving Girls a Place of Their Own
by Laurie Lisle
Making Freedom: The Extraordinary Life of Venture Smith
by Chandler B. Saint and George Krimsky
Welcome to Wesleyan: Campus Buildings
by Leslie Starr
OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O’Keeffe
Louise Nevelson: A Passionate Life
Without Child: Challenging the Stigma of Childlessness
Four Tenths of an Acre: Reflections on a Gardening Life
WESTOVER
Giving Girls a Place of Their Own
LAURIE LISLE
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT 06459
© 2009 by Laurie Lisle
For the author’s Web site, see www.laurielisle.com All rights reserved
Printed in U.S.A. 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lisle, Laurie.
Westover : giving girls a place of their own / by Laurie Lisle.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–8195–6886–1 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Westover School. 2. Girls’ schools—Connecticut—Middlebury—History. I. Title.
LD7251.M635L57 2008
373.18235′2097468—dc22 2008029051
Materials in the Westover archive are published with the permission of Westover School, Middlebury, Connecticut.
Materials pertaining to Theodate Pope Riddle are published with permission of the Archives, Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, Connecticut.
Excerpts from a letter of John Masefield to Mary R. Hillard, dated April 28, 1917, are quoted with the permission of The Society of Authors, London, the literary representative of the Estate of John Masefield.
Quotations from the essay “Taking Women Students Seriously” are from On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966–1978 by Adrienne Rich. Copyright © 1979 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Used by permission of the author and W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Every effort has been made to secure permissions from copyright owners to publish photographs in the archive of Westover School. Sometimes the photographer is unidentified and unknown. In other cases, neither the photographer nor his or her estate could be located. Any copyright owners who were not contacted by the author are invited to come forward and be gratefully acknowledged.
Designed by Charlotte Strick
Cover illustration: Westover students crossing the Quad during the early years of the school. Adapted from a photograph in the Westover archive. The photographer is unknown.
To my Westover
aunts, cousins, mother,
and sister —
once girls known as
Eleanor Cole,
Esther Merriman,
Barbara Simonds,
Lally Simonds,
Nan Morse,
Linda Simonds,
Phillis Simonds,
Abigail Congdon,
and
Adeline Gwynne —
who attended from
1909 to 1968
CONTENTS