LAURIE LISLE

      WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT

      Published by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT 06459

      www.wesleyan.edu/wespress

      © 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