For over a century, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has sought to foster the next generation of leaders. Values such as strong moral character and a commitment to community service are deeply entrenched in the Scout’s mission. Members of the Scouts engage in a wide range of activities including outdoor adventures, service projects, and civic education with many earning badges and recognition for their efforts. Joining the Scouts can be a great way for children of all ages to become more involved in their community and make lifelong friends. Yet, despite being such a valuable part of American youth culture, many are unaware of how the Scouts came to be. 

In 1902, Ernest Thompson Seton founded the first BSA troop in Cos Cob. Originally called the “Woodcraft Indians,” the organization was largely inspired by the Native American way of life, incorporating elements such as outdoor skills, respect for nature, and a sense of community to instill values of teamwork and an appreciation for the environment. The troop came to life over Easter vacation of that year when Seton invited ten local boys to his property for a camp. 

In a 1975 interview with Penny Bott, Leonard S. Clark, one of the ten invited to the camp, recalled his childhood and experience in the Scouts. An eighth-generation Greenwich citizen, Clark was born in 1892 to George P. and Alice Statewell Clark of Bible Street in Cos Cob. In his youth, he attended Cos Cob School, Greenwich High School, and Greenwich Academy.

During their first night on Seton’s property, Clark and the other boys slept in a tent and built a campfire, establishing two traditions that have since become synonymous with the Scouts. Unlike a normal tent, Seton allowed the boys to sleep in a teepee, an original that Seton had purchased from a Native American tribe during his travels. He also had his gardener and property superintendent John Hansen build a fire outside the teepee for the boys. That night, the boys and Seton sat around the fire while he told them stories. 

When asked why he and the other boys enjoyed the campouts so much, Clark described the magic of Seton’s storytelling. “Oh, he told us wonderful stories about the Indians…when he told us stories, everybody paid attention. Not only paid attention, but we were just entranced with his talking.” Seton’s campfire stories were described by Clark as having immense effect on him and the other boys, “And here he was, this great big man, with a fire burning high, and we boys all sitting around, and he telling those stories, while the chills just ran up and down our backs with that kind of thing. It was the greatest experience that any boy anywhere could ever possibly have had.”

The early Scouts took significant inspiration from Native American culture. In describing the structure of the first troop Clark stated, “We elected, not a person to be president, we elected a person to be chief.” While Scouts today receive badges for acts of merit, Scouts of Clark’s time received “coups” or feathers for doing good deeds. “...So we ran races for which we got what he called a coup. A coup was a feather, a feather that we could put in our hair, or stick up, and if you did particularly good, on the upper part of the feather was a little white thread that he had put on, and that was a grand coup.” Receiving a feather to commemorate an accomplishment was a Native American tradition that Seton shared with the Scouts. 

While Seton’s camp for the Scouts initially only consisted of boys from Cos Cob, by its second year, the camp expanded to include other Greenwich boys. The camp’s growing popularity helped to stir outside interest in the Scouts. In 1904, Seton, who was a member of the Camp Fire Club of America, invited club members to spend their summer with the Scouts at his residence in Cos Cob. Attendees included David T. Abercrombie of Abercrombie & Fitch and Englishman Sir Robert S. S. Baden-Powell. Sir Baden-Powell enjoyed his time with the Scouts so much so that he brought the idea back home to England, founding the British Boy Scouts and kicking off the international Boy Scout movement. “...And then I remember sitting around the camp fire one night, and Mr. Seton told us about the Boy Scout movement, and he suggested we change our name from the Woodcraft Indians, as we were known, to Boy Scouts. And so the first Boy Scouts in the United States were the group in Cos Cob.” 

As the Boy Scout movement took off, gaining widespread acclaim, Seton developed a book called the Birch Bark Roll. The book acted as an early form of Scout policy, detailing the things that you needed to do in order to earn a feather. Seton worked on the book from 1902 when the camp had first been founded all the way through 1910 when the camp officially became a Boy Scout troop. 

Clark and many of the other boys shared similar reflections on their time spent with Seton and the Scouts, describing what a cherished and rewarding experience it had been. “There we were, out in the fresh air, running races, sleeping on straw at night with a blanket around you, and being taught the great things, the good things in life, and not a cheap thing.” Despite growing up and leaving the Scouts, many of the boys continued to stay connected, remembering the important lessons that they had learned and memories that they shared. “...The training that we had was outstanding in every sense of the word: the training of truth, the training of physical life, the training of being honest, the training of making your own bed, keeping the camp clean. All those kind of things were just fundamental with us, and the good training that we had had. And so we who are left, and those who died in the World War (WWI), all attribute the good health, the fine characters we had, to the outstanding training Mr. Seton gave us as boys in Cos Cob.”

In founding the Woodcraft Indians, which became the Boy Scouts of America, Seton sought to give youth the proper training necessary to become principled, resilient adults. Simultaneously, Seton had hoped that the Scout camaraderie formed through shared adventures and challenges would help to build lasting friendships and memories, fostering positive attitudes towards civic engagement and community service. Therefore, the values of integrity, loyalty, and courage instilled in Boy Scouts from a young age are just as applicable today as they were during Clark’s time. Boy Scouts today, much like Boy Scouts of Clark’s day, learn important lessons that have unlimited implementations in their future lives and careers. 

Transcripts of the interview with Leonard S. Clark may be read at Greenwich Library and are available for purchase at the Oral History Project office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org.

By permission of and in cooperation with the Greenwich Library Oral History Project

Lockers. The epitome of the American High School; an association derived from classic movies and pop culture. The recurring depiction of teens standing by their lockers and conversing between classes, creating a hotbed for gossip and smalltalk has become a foundational symbol of American high school. At GHS, there is an abundance of lockers, but how long has it been since you opened yours? Perhaps freshman year orientation? The ease of being able to access all your personal belongings on a whim by carrying around a backpack has shoved the prospect of locker usage under the carpet, but what purpose do these abandoned relics have within GHS and why, if not used, do they line the halls so copiously?

In order to answer this question, we first have to conceptualize the evolution of lockers and their seemingly inevitable downfall. It all began when the current GHS school building was constructed in the 1970’s. Rather than lockers to safely store belongings, students kept their books in open cubbies that jutted out from the wall. This posed issues as the open concept attracted thieves and proved to be a hazard. So, when the building was remodeled between 1992 and 2000, lockers were installed. Principal Ralph Mayo, while reflecting on his high school days at the old Greenwich High campus where Town Hall currently sits, notes that the locker culture in the old building was omnipresent. Just as seen in American television, the halls were crowded and the lockers played a key role in the bustle. Mayo compares the locker culture at the Town Hall building to that of Eastern Middle School, or any other Greenwich Middle School, which he describes as being chaotic, yet charming and lively. GHS, where it currently sits, has never had this charm, but Mr. Mayo ensures that the school compensates for this in other ways. Without the hassle of making a trip to a locker, students can use the extra minutes to both socialize and be on time for class. While lockers may seem to enhance the hallway atmosphere, as suggested by pop culture, lockers are a pain. Mayo recalls that when he was principal at Eastern Middle School, students would often forget their locker combinations and require a master key to unlock it, among other issues. 

It's well-known that with Covid-19, and the limitations it placed on every physical surface, locker use was extracted from the school-scene. But GHS has long been refraining from locker use, even before the pandemic. With the exception of students in theater programs, as well as a few others, Mayo states that the percentage of students using lockers is “almost close to zero”. With the sheer size of GHS, having to retrieve your stored items in a seemingly random location, would be inconvenient and make for more congested halls. So, because locker usage for the average GHS student is nonexistent as of today, when it comes time for GHS to renovate years in the future, what will become of these unwieldy relics? Mayo states that because the lockers at GHS are built into the wall, removing them would be expensive and not financially worth it, meaning, they will continue to add to the GHS ambiance, for time to come. Even when not in use, lockers are a significant part of adding to the school charm and are quintessential to the stereotypical academic atmosphere. Therefore, functioning or not, they have a rightful place in our school hallways.

The Olympics have been an international sensation since 1896, with many winners all over the globe becoming overnight sensations. Yet there was an Olympian that came from Greenwich, Connecticut. Helen Meany, a long-time Greenwich resident, won a gold medal in diving in the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam. Thanks to the Greenwich Historical Society’s Oral History Project, her history and her journey to become an Olympic Champion have been documented and preserved. Her story, as well as many other stories from other local Greenwich residents, are displayed at the Greenwich Library. 

Helen Meany was born on December 15th, 1904, in New York City. A year later, her family moved to Greenwich. Her family first lived in a steamboat house with a small beach before residing in a bigger house on Old Church Road and East Putnam. Everyone swam in her family, where she was the oldest of 11 children, but Meany proved to be the most talented. “I learned to swim before I could walk,” she told the interviewer. When she won her first swim meet at age 13, her dad took her to the A.A.U (Amateur Athletic Union). 

Although she was a skilled swimmer, Helen Meany’s true passion was diving, but there was no high diving platform readily available.  That didn’t stop Meany, however, for she would dive off the dock or on top of a coal house. Later, her father made a high-diving board out of a makeshift float with a ten-foot pole at the Indian Harbor Yacht Club. Because of how dangerous it was, they quickly stopped. But when she saw Alice Lord Landon dive off a 10-meter platform, she knew she wanted to pursue this more than recreationally. From that day on, she would travel to Manhattan Beach every day to practice her diving. The amazing part is that she never had a coach to teach her. “I learned most of my dives from a thirty-four-foot platform, and if you don’t hit the water just right, you can get hurt. . . .So you just have to try it and try to correct it yourself,” she explained to the interviewer. 

Making the Olympic diving team wasn’t easy. She first tried to make the team in 1920 but was eliminated in the first round. Four years later, she placed 5th in the ten-meter platform competition in Paris. But 1928 was the year she truly shined, as she won the gold medal in the three-meter event in Amsterdam. This is an incredible accomplishment considering she had no formal training from a coach. 

After going to India with the American Red Cross and living on a ranch with her family in San Antonio, Texas, she went back to Greenwich in 1958 until she died in 1991. Helen Meany is a true testimony of what a person can accomplish by making the best of her small resources.

For over a century, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has sought to foster the next generation of leaders. Values such as strong moral character and a commitment to community service are deeply entrenched in the Scout’s mission. Members of the Scouts engage in a wide range of activities including outdoor adventures, service projects, and civic education with many earning badges and recognition for their efforts. Joining the Scouts can be a great way for children of all ages to become more involved in their community and make lifelong friends. Yet, despite being such a valuable part of American youth culture, many are unaware of how the Scouts came to be. 

In 1902, Ernest Thompson Seton founded the first BSA troop in Cos Cob. Originally called the “Woodcraft Indians,” the organization was largely inspired by the Native American way of life, incorporating elements such as outdoor skills, respect for nature, and a sense of community to instill values of teamwork and an appreciation for the environment. The troop came to life over Easter vacation of that year when Seton invited ten local boys to his property for a camp. 

In a 1975 interview with Penny Bott, Leonard S. Clark, one of the ten invited to the camp, recalled his childhood and experience in the Scouts. An eighth-generation Greenwich citizen, Clark was born in 1892 to George P. and Alice Statewell Clark of Bible Street in Cos Cob. In his youth, he attended Cos Cob School, Greenwich High School, and Greenwich Academy.

During their first night on Seton’s property, Clark and the other boys slept in a tent and built a campfire, establishing two traditions that have since become synonymous with the Scouts. Unlike a normal tent, Seton allowed the boys to sleep in a teepee, an original that Seton had purchased from a Native American tribe during his travels. He also had his gardener and property superintendent John Hansen build a fire outside the teepee for the boys. That night, the boys and Seton sat around the fire while he told them stories. 

When asked why he and the other boys enjoyed the campouts so much, Clark described the magic of Seton’s storytelling. “Oh, he told us wonderful stories about the Indians…when he told us stories, everybody paid attention. Not only paid attention, but we were just entranced with his talking.” Seton’s campfire stories were described by Clark as having immense effect on him and the other boys, “And here he was, this great big man, with a fire burning high, and we boys all sitting around, and he telling those stories, while the chills just ran up and down our backs with that kind of thing. It was the greatest experience that any boy anywhere could ever possibly have had.”

The early Scouts took significant inspiration from Native American culture. In describing the structure of the first troop Clark stated, “We elected, not a person to be president, we elected a person to be chief.” While Scouts today receive badges for acts of merit, Scouts of Clark’s time received “coups” or feathers for doing good deeds. “...So we ran races for which we got what he called a coup. A coup was a feather, a feather that we could put in our hair, or stick up, and if you did particularly good, on the upper part of the feather was a little white thread that he had put on, and that was a grand coup.” Receiving a feather to commemorate an accomplishment was a Native American tradition that Seton shared with the Scouts. 

While Seton’s camp for the Scouts initially only consisted of boys from Cos Cob, by its second year, the camp expanded to include other Greenwich boys. The camp’s growing popularity helped to stir outside interest in the Scouts. In 1904, Seton, who was a member of the Camp Fire Club of America, invited club members to spend their summer with the Scouts at his residence in Cos Cob. Attendees included David T. Abercrombie of Abercrombie & Fitch and Englishman Sir Robert S. S. Baden-Powell. Sir Baden-Powell enjoyed his time with the Scouts so much so that he brought the idea back home to England, founding the British Boy Scouts and kicking off the international Boy Scout movement. “...And then I remember sitting around the camp fire one night, and Mr. Seton told us about the Boy Scout movement, and he suggested we change our name from the Woodcraft Indians, as we were known, to Boy Scouts. And so the first Boy Scouts in the United States were the group in Cos Cob.” 

As the Boy Scout movement took off, gaining widespread acclaim, Seton developed a book called the Birch Bark Roll. The book acted as an early form of Scout policy, detailing the things that you needed to do in order to earn a feather. Seton worked on the book from 1902 when the camp had first been founded all the way through 1910 when the camp officially became a Boy Scout troop. 

Clark and many of the other boys shared similar reflections on their time spent with Seton and the Scouts, describing what a cherished and rewarding experience it had been. “There we were, out in the fresh air, running races, sleeping on straw at night with a blanket around you, and being taught the great things, the good things in life, and not a cheap thing.” Despite growing up and leaving the Scouts, many of the boys continued to stay connected, remembering the important lessons that they had learned and memories that they shared. “...The training that we had was outstanding in every sense of the word: the training of truth, the training of physical life, the training of being honest, the training of making your own bed, keeping the camp clean. All those kind of things were just fundamental with us, and the good training that we had had. And so we who are left, and those who died in the World War (WWI), all attribute the good health, the fine characters we had, to the outstanding training Mr. Seton gave us as boys in Cos Cob.”

In founding the Woodcraft Indians, which became the Boy Scouts of America, Seton sought to give youth the proper training necessary to become principled, resilient adults. Simultaneously, Seton had hoped that the Scout camaraderie formed through shared adventures and challenges would help to build lasting friendships and memories, fostering positive attitudes towards civic engagement and community service. Therefore, the values of integrity, loyalty, and courage instilled in Boy Scouts from a young age are just as applicable today as they were during Clark’s time. Boy Scouts today, much like Boy Scouts of Clark’s day, learn important lessons that have unlimited implementations in their future lives and careers. 

Transcripts of the interview with Leonard S. Clark may be read at Greenwich Library and are available for purchase at the Oral History Project office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org.

By permission of and in cooperation with the Greenwich Library Oral History Project

Today, the square-like brick building near Greenwich Ave is the Board of Education, but many years ago, it was known as Greenwich High School. The goal of this  $150,000 gift from Industrialist and Entrepreneur Henry Osborne Havemeyer was to provide an education for every child free of cost, and for almost two centuries, Greenwich High School has provided exceptional public education and fostered the minds of many notable people. This new project was the talk of the town in 1891, as many journals documented what happened every step of the way. Thanks to the Greenwich Historical Society, many articles on student life and construction have been preserved digitally for the public to witness the entire process of the making of the GHS we know today. 

The project to build Greenwich High School started in 1891, but the building didn’t open its doors until 1898. Of course, some complications happened during the project. On December 7th of 1892, It was brought to Mr. Havemeyer’s attention that some townspeople intimidated an architect to pay them $500 apiece. In return, they would give him an award for the plan. Upon hearing this, Mr. Havemeyer immediately fired the architect and told the authorities he would hire an architect to review the project. On December 7th, the N.Y. press stated that it was “shameful that anyone should try to make money in an underhanded way out of a public benefaction like this.”

Greenwich High School was supposed to be 10 acres, “centrally located, and costing the sum of $45,000” according to a 1983 article in the Greenwich Time. The Board of Education of that time was in “great agitation” for they thought they couldn’t afford such prices. To relieve the cost, they decided to create a two-story building instead of a one-story building. Mr. EC Benedict, a nearby neighbor, was upset because it would obstruct the view of the Sound. So, he decided to talk to Mr. Havemeyer about the problem, but Havemeyer replied that it was too late to change the structure of the building. Then, Benedict went to the architect, and between several conferences between him and Mr. Havemeyer, the copper roof was replaced with a flat roof. But, Mr. Benedict had to do certain things in return. First, he had to pay $2,000 for the flat roof and $16,000 for a separate gymnasium. Although the Board of Education was split when it came to the changing of the construction plan, they finally gave in and destroyed all the progress they made with the building. As a result, some journalists were unhappy with this change in the construction plan. In the Port Chester Journal, they believed that no one has the private right to the “undisputed sweep of the Sound”. As a result, the school should have the “beautiful structure rise it [original plan] intended”. 

Despite all the issues that arose from the project, the school was a success. In a 1902 Greenwich Time article, it was reported that the school had 15 seniors, 12 juniors, 17 sophomores, and 51 freshmen. There was a new new equipment for Chemistry and Physics classes, and the students read the books provided by Mr. Havemeyer. The school was described to be clean, with varnished wood, and a floor stained with “no-dust-o”. The principal, Mr. Winnie, was proud of the year, since the students and the teachers had a good relationship. He even expressed a funny incident when a boy was brought to his office for refusing to read when the teacher told him to. When the principal asked why he didn’t comply, the boy responded: “Oh, it’s in the family.”  The boy then remarked that he was told to find another family because of his hatred for reading “could not possibly be borne in the Greenwich School”. It is because of the persistence of a group of people that Greenwich High School still today provides a strong education for students free of charge.  Despite the obstacles people faced with constructing the building, Greenwich High was still successful a couple years after the construction.

From the Boy Scouts to “Baby Day” the life of Alexandra Clark Spann paints a portrait of early 20th-century Greenwich youth culture. Born in 1903 to two long-time residents of the Glenville area, Spann attended Greenwich schools before going on to study dentistry at Columbia University. Throughout two 1974 interviews with Penny Bott-Haughwout and Gertrude Reinheart, Spann recalled her childhood memories and reminisced over the changes that Greenwich underwent throughout her longtime residence. 

As a young child, Spann was decidedly a tomboy. Her father, John A. Clarke, had hoped for a boy and so when Spann was born, he decided to raise her as such. Instead of wearing traditionally feminine baby clothes, Spann dressed in rompers and her brother’s cast-off knickerbockers. Over time, she grew fond of these outfits and much to her great-aunt’s dismay refused to wear anything girlish. She recalls, “My grandmother’s sister was shocked [by my rompers and knickerbockers], so she bought material and made me a complete outfit in white, which I wore once and hated.” 

Into her early childhood, Spann continued to showcase tomboyish traits, joining Troop 9 of the newly-formed Boy Scouts of America alongside her brother. Although she was a part of the Scouts, because she was young, Spann was often subject to the grunt work required to keep the troop running. She affectionately described herself as being a “willing slave,” who “could go along [with the other Scouts] if [she] would build a fire, clean the fish, cook them, serve them, and wash the dishes.” 

Even so, Spann attributes many of her fondest childhood memories to her time at the Scouts. It was there that she engaged in many invigorating outdoor activities and even had the opportunity to meet Ernest T. Seton, a founding pioneer of the Scouts, after whom Greenwich’s Camp Seton is named. Participating in the Scouts was also a great family bonding activity. Both Spann’s mother and father were avidly involved in the Scouts with her mother acting as the first troop committee woman in the country and her father possessing a silver beaver signed by President Theodore Roosevelt. 

Throughout her childhood, Spann attended the Greenwich Public Schools. She attended Havemeyer School for elementary, which at the time was one of nine Greenwich school districts. Classes were small and consisted of fewer than twenty students, with younger students attending school in the morning and older students staying until the late afternoon. Students who received permission from their parents were also able to attend school at night, taking a special star-studying class. 

At the time, there was no transportation to school and almost all students walked. Spann recalls, “Two friends of mine used to walk across North Street from Taconic Road to high school every day, every year, for four years.” The journey across North Street and Taconic Road to the high school was a ten-mile round trip meaning that students spent a good portion of their day just getting to and from school. However, during Spann’s high school years, one student in her class had an air-cooled Franklin car that he drove every day to school. She recalled that he was quite the envy of those who walked. 

By high school, Spann had adopted a more feminine style of dress yet still held her unique style. She described her favorite outfit as, “black jersey, pleated skirt, a black top buttoned down the front, long sleeves. ” Although Spann stuck with this signature outfit for all four years of high school, she embellished it by experimenting with different kinds of cuffs and collars, “I changed it by changing the cuffs and collars. I had some in green and white plaid, some in checks, some plain white, some colored. [And I always wore them] with cufflinks.” While Spann was in high school, skirts were always worn below the knee aside from “Baby Day” in the spring of senior year. 

“Baby Day” was a Greenwich High School tradition in which seniors dressed as babies. Spann recalled that “the boys wore knickers and long stockings, and the girls wore short skirts and baby bonnets.” Spann’s senior class was the last to participate in this tradition as it was banned after girls in Spann’s class wore socks without stockings, something that was considered “indecent” for school attire at the time. 

In terms of academics, Spann recalled her high school years favorably. She was especially fond of Greenwich High School principal Harry C. Folsom, who was referred to by the students as “Pop Folsom” due to his kind nature. One of Spann’s most prominent high school memories was being called into Folsom’s office, trembling with fear after committing an infraction of the school rules. Instead of reprimanding her, Folsom was sympathetic and expressed, “It hurts me more than it does you because it reflects on our school’s reputation.” To this, Spann promised not to commit any more infractions and didn’t for the remainder of her time at the high school. 

At the high school, Spann took subjects such as arithmetic, drawing, and English. Spann preferred drawing so much to arithmetic that at one point she was called into Folsom’s office regarding her tendency to doodle during lessons where he exclaimed “Alexandra, you’re wasting your time, the teacher’s time, and the paper and pencils.” Following this, Spann decided to put more focus into art and took many drawing electives. Much like students today, Spann preferred electives to compulsory subjects because you got to choose what you wanted to take. 

Although the Greenwich of Spann’s childhood is vastly different from the Greenwich of the present day, the town’s vibrant youth culture remains eminent. Students of today exhibit the same vigor and enthusiasm as students of the past and many continue to enjoy activities such as participating in the Scouts and dressing up for school spirit days.
 

Transcripts of the interviews with Alexandra Clark Spann may be read at Greenwich Library and are available for purchase at the Oral History Project office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org.
 

By permission of and in cooperation with the Greenwich Library Oral History Project.

More than a month after Daylight Savings Time ended, students at GHS are still affected by the time change. Many have lost sleep as they have struggled to adjust to the time change, and the fact that the sun sets earlier seems to have negatively affected students’ mental health. As one sophomore said, “It made me extremely depressed. I come home from school, and within an hour, it’s dark. It makes me feel unproductive and in a constant state of sadness.” 

On the other hand, another anonymous student sees some benefits to the time change, stating, “I get more sleep time. As a person who doesn’t sleep, I now get more sleep time, so that’s good.” However, they also said, “I hate how it becomes dark. We can’t do school projects outside of school anymore, because we need daylight.”

As we grapple with the modern repercussions of a century-old decision, it is important to note the history of Daylight Savings itself. Changing the time originally began in the United States during World War I, in an effort to conserve power and fuel, the belief being that pushing clocks further an hour would preserve electricity, as night would fall at a later hour. However, many feel that this is no longer necessary, labeling the practice as outdated. As someone said to me,  “It’s ridiculous. You turn the lights on during the night, so if anything you’re wasting more energy than if it was dark in the morning for an hour. You’re spending the same amount of electricity anyway, if not more.” Some countries, such as Mexico, have gotten rid of the time changes altogether, deciding to stick to Standard Time (the time that the U.S. has just switched back to) instead, with more and more nations around the world adopting this practice. 

Ultimately, regardless of one’s stance on the topic, one thing is clear: high school students are greatly affected by time changes, as is reflected by the GHS student body. 

There is an old saying that goes “those who do not learn history are bound to repeat it.” So I wondered, is the experience at Greenwich High School today the same as the experience of those who attended the high school 60-80 years ago? According to an interview with former principal Andrew Bella, GHS back then had both many similarities and differences to the high school today. 

While GHS students today may not recognize the name “Andrew Bella” they are certainly familiar with Bella House, an eponym of the former principal. Bella was born in 1907 in Byram, Connecticut, and lived in Greenwich for over seventy years. Throughout his time working at the high school and serving as principal, he experienced many of the school’s defining moments and helped to shape the next generation of Greenwich residents. 

While seniors this past year chose to toilet-paper trees and graffiti the sidewalks outside of GHS, seniors in the 1950s took a different approach to the senior prank. At 8:00 a.m. one regular school morning, Bella arrived to find the teachers and staff in disarray. He was soon notified that there was a car sitting on the second floor of the high school building. Bella quickly made his way up the stairs, a crowd of around one hundred students trailing behind, and found a fully-assembled Volkswagen Beetle. There was not a single scratch on the car or the floor and so it seemed as if the car had magically appeared. Bella would later learn that a group of clever students somehow managed to sneak past the high school security and, in the dead of night, used the disassembled parts they had brought with them to reassemble the car on the second floor. Leaving not a trace behind them. 

This past year, the GHS football team won big, defeating Fairfield Prep for their second Class LL championship in five years. A crowd of enthusiastic and excited students proudly cheered on the win in an exciting season for the high school. Back in the 50s, Greenwich students carried the same passion and enthusiasm for the sport, going so far as to overturn a police car during a disappointing loss. After intense pressure from the crowd forced the referees to rule in favor of the opposing team, GHS students stormed the police station and ultimately damaged the police car as well as causing quite a scene with their protesting. Bella recalled having to cancel the entire football season after the riot occurred, leading to even more upset from the students. 

As the 2022-2023 school year came to an end, the GHS seniors were looking forward to an exciting graduation ceremony, scheduled to take place on June 15. While graduations are usually a place brimming with elation, one that Bella remembered very fondly was when a graduate, who had a bone malignancy and spent her time in a wheelchair, was able to receive her diploma. Bella had arranged for a fellow graduate to wheel the student up to the podium where he would meet her to hand out her diploma; however, when the time came, the student got up out of her wheelchair and walked up to the microphone to meet him. This came as a great surprise for the graduating class and the rest of the audience, who were amazed by the student’s determination. Out of the thousands of diplomas handed out by Bella, this was the most memorable, defeating Fairfield Prep for their second Class LL championship in five years. A crowd of enthusiastic learn that a group of clever students somehow managed to sneak past the high school security and, in the dead of night, used the disassembled parts they had brought with them to reassemble the car on the second floor. Leaving not a trace behind them. 

This past year, the GHS football team won big. Life at Greenwich High School has changed a lot over the years and while the school and its students are constantly evolving, some things will always stay the same. The sentiments of an excited crowd at a football game or the mischievous ways of a senior class can be traced back to the very founding of GHS. I am sure that Bella would be pleased to see that students today still hold the same vigor and enthusiasm as his students back then.

Transcripts of the interviews with Andrew Bella may be read at Greenwich Library and are available for purchase at the Oral History Project office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org.

By permission of and in cooperation with the Greenwich Library Oral History Project.

The attack on the Twin Towers is a decade-defining day in the month of September, especially for the people who live in Greenwich. Watching videos and seeing pictures of the translucent, black smoke permeating the air as the Twin Towers burst into flames and ashes is unbearable. The personal accounts range from miraculous survivals to heartbreaking moments of despair. Many faculty in Greenwich have witnessed this horrid event unravel. Some were even teenagers, like Mr. Jones, a teacher of AP US Government and Comparative Politics and AP US History. Mr. Jones was a senior when he witnessed the infamous 9/11 attack. Yet that day formed and shaped the person he later became. 

Mr. Jones was in the fitness center with the now-retired Mr. Gioffre during that fateful day. The Z-100 radio was on when he heard that the first tower was hit. Surprisingly, there were small aircraft that had hit the towers before, yet when they announced it no one thought it was a jet. Mr. Jones remembered thinking, “How bad a pilot do you have to be to hit the World Trade Center?” The next period he went to Clark House (which was once Sheldon House) and watched the second tower fall on the TV they had displayed. Mr. Jones recalled it being surreal when he watched the towers burst into flames. The fear engulfed him, as he was afraid of a future attack. It became more real when he and his friends later went to Tod's Point and saw the smoke coming from Manhattan. “It was apparent that the world would never be the same,” he said. With people furious at Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda and grieving over lost loved ones, the world would never be the same, even more than 20 years later. Yet, the community bounced back even stronger than before.

“At the end of the day, your neighbors and friends should matter,” Mr. Jones said. Mr. Jones also believes 9/11 showed him the importance of being kind to one another and giving people the benefit of the doubt. After 9/11 Mr. Jones and his club members from The Key Club collected money from a pretzel box and sold food at games in order to raise money to fund the survivors.  For the rest of the fall, he joined walks and marches to support people who were affected by that horrible day. In fact, he was in the military for a while before he became a history teacher at Greenwich High School. From joining charitable events, being a part of ROTC, and teaching kids about history, Mr. Jones turned a disastrous event he experienced into fuel to serve his community the best he could. 

September 11th marked the 23rd year since the Twin Towers fell in New York City. This event reminds people of the beauty and importance of oral history. A simple story can unite a group of people and can lead to a greater understanding of an event from a humane perspective. September 11th has taught humanity how quickly one can adapt and react to any situation given to them.