HONORARY REFLECTIONS: Aggie Underwood

 

MS. FORD: Thank you.  I would like to now introduce Aggie Underwood.  You saw that the honorary members who were present were acknowledged, and four years ago we began a tradition at this meeting to hear reflections from one of the honorary members.  And Aggie Underwood is going to do that this evening. Many of you know that she is the vice president at Carney Sandoe in charge of the division for the head searches, which is an extraordinarily important role.  Prior to that she was the head of Cathedral School in Washington, and prior to that Garrison Forest School, outside of Baltimore.  So please welcome Aggie Underwood.

 

MS. UNDERWOOD:  You know, at Cathedral I had a little stool, and they would make me look good in my robes.  I could see all of you.

 

I'm delighted to have been asked to give these reflections.  And when they asked honoraries to stand, there are only a few of us left.  So I'll try not to be repetitive and I hope I'll set the standard for those who come behind.

 

I want to divide my brief remarks into three parts, trying not to repeat the wonderful stories and memories offered by Nancy, Evy and Blair.  In my economics class -- and I'm an economist, not an English major -- I might characterize these as core business, subsidiaries, and spin-offs.

 

Now, let's talk about core business.  My first NAPSG meeting was in 1978 in Williamsburg, exactly 30 years ago.  I was just 37, and had been headmistress at Garrison for eight months.  A tradition of NAPSG in those days was the immediate welcome of new members by more senior headmistresses and a few male heads.  Mike Churchman comes to mind. The warmth of these greetings at cocktails, dinners, on walks, extended from meeting to meeting.  Sam McMurray, Milly Berendsen, Joan McMenamin, and others were among those who made all of us feel a real part of NAPSG, with our conspicuous name tags announcing our fresh faces.  And I think the name tags were often inscribed by Milly Berendsen, who has the most beautiful script, if any of you ever received a note from Milly.  And I think they were green.  What color were those tags, Nancy?

 

MS. KUSSROW:  There were four different colors:  Green for old members, red for new members, blue for honorary members, and white for guests.

 

MS. UNDERWOOD:  They were recognizable.  I want to tell you just a few anecdotes of several of those women we consider the giants in girls' education.  People made heroic efforts to get to NAPSG in those days, and at my second meeting at the  Homestead, Anne Lenox and Adele Sands arrived absolutely breathless.  Anne, as you may know, was a marine in background, posture, and training.  She and Adele had driven from Philadelphia to the Homestead through Hagerstown, Maryland, Anne's hometown.

 

Now, you know, western Maryland is as mountainous as the Shenendoahs, and on the drive Anne's brakes failed.  Nonetheless, she steered the car, with Adele covering her eyes, down a mountain without brakes, coming to a halt at a Hertz office, rented a car, and arrived on time for cocktails.

 

My third meeting was at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, one of our more notorious spots, because of the hotel bar named the Golden Bee. Small bees for the lapel were awarded to those who danced on tables and generally represented our profession with grace and decorum.  Jean Harris and Charlie Lord cut quite a swath, as did I, dancing with one of our male members whose name I have forgotten.

 

But of course, there were many more sober moments at the conference.  Grace and prayers were offered by the president of NAPSG at every meal. Anne Lenox was now our president, and at the last meal -- and everyone stayed for every meal; that shows you the state of the finances of schools for girls -- Anne said, "And now it is time that I should pray over you again."  At that moment, she pulled out a cocktail napkin she had been given by Frontier Airlines on her trip from Denver, and proceeded to read the prayer printed on the napkin. It was hard to keep a straight face in those heady days.

 

Always at the center of the business at NAPSG was the importance of the program.  If you were tapped to take on the responsibility of program chair, you certainly did not tell your board chair, because the time and energy to live up to the tradition of excellent, current, and challenging speakers was formidable and time-consuming.  We worked with our colleagues from our member colleges and universities to present issues with which they were dealing that were important to us, as well as topics of national interest, educational interest, and always of interest to those of us who educate girls.  Members could count on coming away from meetings with ideas that would influence their leadership for the next and future years.

 

Subsidiaries.  As for subsidiaries, the first meeting of the NAPSG seminar was held at Garrison Forest School where faculty stayed with me in the head's house, a castle-like structure named Lochinvar (without the nuts).  We sat around the large dining room table planning our next day's activities and eating popcorn passed around by Freddie, our only resident male, as Big Fred had been banished.  Freddie was six or so, and he barely reached the edge of the table, as I remember, Blair.

 

People recall, although I blush to think, that when Blair announced the seminar would be at Garrison Forest, my retort was, "At least we know the food will be delicious."  And the crab feast at the end of the seminar offered proof enough.

 

But much more importantly, what all of us who have supported this wonderful opportunity know, our faith in the value of women heads speaking with potential women leaders was borne out and the seminar has continued as one of the most important initiatives of NAPSG and has been instrumental in the placing of the next generation of heads.

 

Finally, spin-offs.  I'm certain that NAPSG also deeply influenced those of us who met at Miss Porter's School to form the Coalition of Girls Boarding Schools.  Rachel Belash, Phil Deely, and I had the presence of mind to hire Whitty Ransome to carry the banner of our boarding schools forward to the eventual merger with the later formed group of girls' day schools.  The discussion of merger took place at Emma Willard, and the rhetoric would have surprised some of our great women leaders.  But in the end, several cool heads prevailed and we are blessed with a national coalition that now exists, and has done such great work with the help of Whitty and Meg Moulton.

 

A final stealth spin-off of NAPSG about which few of you know was the formation of the Headmistresses of the Northeast Kingdom.  This was a group of five NAPSG members who gathered annually in Monroe, New Hampshire, for a long weekend.  I have saved notes from these meetings, should the now defunct organization ever be recognized in someone's archives.  I'm looking for them.

 

We had a uniform of white sweatpants and red sweatshirts with "HMNEK" on the back and our names on the front, and of course, red baseball caps with the HMNEK logo in gold thread.  At one meeting we went for lunch at a local restaurant.  As we were leaving, we were stopped by a group of elderly Vermont gentlemen who asked if we were a bowling team.  Not bowling perhaps, but we were a team.  A team of headmistresses, nurtured by the gathering at NAPSG and encouraged by friendships developed there to gather for fun, conversation, and company, and remember our colleagues and our important work with the faculty and young women who had been in our care.  Thank you.

 

MS. FORD:  Thank you, Aggie! I neglected to say that Aggie is also a past president of this august organization.

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