St. Mark’s Memory submitted by Bob Masland ’68
In January 1964, I had my fifteen minutes of fame. The February edition of Holiday magazine came out with a cover story about The New England Prep School. There, on page 38 was a full page picture of Robert Paul Masland III. I was standing on Belmont Field, wearing a madras jacket, posed beside my trunk, golf clubs and college pennants. According to the copy writer “(my) prep-school career begins on a note of loneliness and frightening independence. ” I remember meeting the photographer,Robert Phillips at Mr Gaccon’s study and being asked to show up with “all my belongings” the next morning at 5:30 in front of the school. The photographer arranged the props and I posed behind and beside them for over an hour. The props were moved many times (including a second shoot on Easter Sunday) to capture the spring sun and the school. In 1980 Lisa Birnbach edited the wildly successful “The Official Preppy Handbook” and there, on page 63 for the chapter The Big Sleepover, Boarding School life was another photo of Bobby Masland and his life’s belongings. Fifty years later the school still photographs well and I look forward to the warm days when I can wear madras again.
St. Mark’s Memory
“I remember my first day on campus, meeting my roommate Margaret Benkard under the big tree by the lion statue and then running up the creaking carpeted stairs to asses our Thayer dorm room which overlooked the football field. Bunk beds were essential for the small space. Did I want top or bottom? Who would get the closet? We spread carpet, hung curtains, tacked up U2 and Sting posters, put fake plants in our non-working fireplace and booby trapped our Pier1 butterfly chairs so unsuspecting guests would fall onto the brick hearth. Ouch! Although dorm mates quickly became wary of visiting, we did seem to make a good impression on the school tour guides who paraded a seemingly endless troupe of visitors up to our room (despite the stench of rotting food emanating from Marg’s desk drawer). And my next memory is about making friends, the friends that I still consider my best; the ones with whom I shared the thickest, darkest, most fruitful and exploratory part of adolescence. Arriving as a fourth former, I envied the bonded closeness of my classmates who had started in third form. I wanted something to happen that would crack open their circle and let me in. And it did. Just weeks into school Hurricane Gloria tore up campus; and the path of its destruction created openings for new friendships to form. After being confined to our rooms for hours, we were allowed outside to explore the storm’s impact. It was dark. Power was out in town. Trees were lying sideways across the circular front drive. And into those trees we went. Climbing along branches and pushing aside wet leaves we straddled canopy limbs, now only a few feet from the ground, and talked. Awkwardness and unfamiliarity fell away like leaves. We perched and chattered like birds. And when it was time to descend we did so not as distant individuals, but as a flock of friends, and remain so to this day.”
-Alicia Heyburn ’88
…how many students were enrolled when it all started?
The original School Building “under one roof’.
In the beginning there were 12. Just 12 students made up the total enrollment of St. Mark’s School on its very first day of operation, in September 1865. Given the fledgling nature of the institution, there was a kind of rolling admission policy, and by the spring of 1866, there were 18 or more St. Markers living and studying under one roof: the original main building on the northeast corner at the intersection of Main Street and Marlboro Road in Southborough.
…when St. Mark’s had a staff of maids?
There were maids employed by St. Mark’s from its founding in 1865 right through the 1970’s, However, prior to World War II, a full staff of maids took care of ALL housekeeping needs, including making students’ beds and tidying up their rooms. While this practice was limited somewhat in 1917 and 1918 for those students involved in military training on campus, dormitory maid services continued through the 1930’s. It was finally stopped in time for World War II, as it was felt that young men destined to serve their country ought to be able to take care of themselves. Some maids were retained to do housekeeping chores in more public areas of the School over the next 30-plus years or so.
…when St.Mark’s boarders lived in alcoves?
Dorms A, B, and C on the third floor of the Main Building featured a long wide corridor flanked by rows of alcoves, divided by partitioned walls that remained open to the high ceiling. Instead of doors, privacy came from individual curtains across the entrance to each single bed alcove. Drawers for clothing, a closet and a desk were also provided. In the earliest years, all heat came from a large fireplace at the end of the corridor with high ceilings, heat traveled upward, and the floors could be very cold in the morning for bare feet. This was the typical residential accommodation for boarders up through the IV Form from 1890 on. A two-bed prefect’s room, a bathroom with a large shower area, and a Maser’s apartment were at the opposite end of the dorm, by the entrance. Dorms A and B were renovated into two-person rooms in 1972-1973, while Dorm C was converted a couple of years later.
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