Opinion
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
by frank.callahan
View of Worcester courtesy of the Worcester Historical Museum
At an elevation of 625 feet above sea level, Union Hill is a prominent eminence above the City, but the origin of its name is not so apparent. Neighborhood folklore linked the name to a Civil War hospital that once crowned the top of the hill. In this brief but significant event in the neighborhood’s history, a large, turreted building served as a Civil War hospital for Massachusetts soldiers recuperating from wounds received in the battlefront down South. Years later, the building became a dormitory at Worcester Academy, known as Davis Hall, but it was common knowledge in the neighborhood that it once had been a Civil War hospital. For many years, the neighbors made the connection that the hill was named for the hospital’s Union soldiers. In reality, the neighborhood was named long before the arrival of the soldiers. Continue reading »
Popularity: 1% [?]
Friday, February 26th, 2010
by Dr. John Fox
A special thank you to the Worcester Academy Middle School community for the incredible outpouring of support for our Giving Tree! Items have been coming in daily. There are so many items that they will not fit in the office. Many children in our neighborhood schools will be impacted by your generosity. Clothing, books, backpacks, and a variety of other items have made it a joy to match each student’s wish list. I would also like to offer sincere thanks to Mrs. Gow and Ms. Thomas for organizing and coordinating our Giving Tree. We certainly hope to see this become a Middle School Tradition.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Monday, February 22nd, 2010
by Dr. John Fox
The Giving Tree is really taking root in the Middle School! We appreciate all the efforts of middlers and their families to support this effort. All items can be brought to the Middle School Office. Reminder: the Giving Tree will end on Friday, February 26. 
Popularity: 3% [?]
Friday, February 5th, 2010
by Dr. John Fox
Looking forward to Winter Carnival Weekend 2010! There will be lots of fun activities for middlers and their families! Check back for photos.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Monday, February 1st, 2010
by frank.callahan
The original name for the hill upon which Worcester Academy is located is the Algonquin word Sagatabscot, or “Hill of Rocks” in English. A more literal translation is “siogke” hard and “ompak” rock or the place of the hard rock, which was significant to the natives because it distinguished the kind
of rocks they used for making axes, lance heads, and pestles, etc. Importantly, for the Indians, the hill is mostly schist, a metamorphic rock formed over millenniums from clay and mud. Its derivation in Greek is “to split” and schist being easy to split because of the heavy mineral content made the rock particularly suitable to fashion arrow heads and other utensils.
From Rice’s History of Worcester Continue reading »
Popularity: 5% [?]
Monday, February 1st, 2010
by Dr. John Fox
Congratulations to all who participated in or worked behind the scenes to make our recent Talent Show a success! Special thanks to Mrs. Carter. Hoping to have photos of the Talent Show soon….
Popularity: 4% [?]
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
by frank.callahan
Graduation photograph
Cole Porter is Worcester Academy’s most celebrated alumnus. Because he composed the music and wrote the lyrics to his songs, Porter is routinely mentioned as an authentic American genius. Porter left his Midwestern home at a young age to spend his formative years at Worcester Academy.
Porter was named for his grandfather J. O. Cole, one of the wealthiest men in Indiana, who hailed from the town of Peru. A domineering tyrant, J. O. met his match with his daughter, Kate, who was as strong-willed as her father. Kate married a local drug store owner, Sam Porter, who avoided
the debate between Kate and her father on how to raise young Cole, which distanced him from his son.
To further her ambitions, Kate was determined to send Cole to an Eastern boarding school to prepare for an Ivy League college, but J. O.
wanted Cole to attend a nearby military school to help train him to take over his business empire. The disagreement over the boy’s future caused a
rift, and J.O. and Kate did not speak for the first three years that Cole attended Worcester Academy. Cole was well aware of this tension and at the Academy he rarely spoke of his family, which led his friends at the school and even faculty to conclude that he was an orphan.
Elbert W. Shirk
Cole Porter came to Worcester through a family connection in Peru. Ellen Walker, the daughter of the President of the Worcester Academy Board of Trustees, Joseph Walker, had married Milton Shirk, who was from another family of great wealth in Peru. Their sons, Joseph and Elbert Shirk, had graduated from the Academy in 1898, and seven years later Cole Porter followed them to the Academy in 1905.
Cole Porter was barely fourteen years old when he came to Worcester Academy as a freshman. Small for his age, he was not an athlete on a campus where sports dominated life outside the classroom. Significantly for Cole, a large living room for all the boys opened during his first term at the school. It was called the Megaron, and by playing the Chickering grand piano in this recreation space, the small boy became instantly popular with all of the students. Besides his fellow students, Cole was an immediate favorite of the faculty, and particularly their wives, because of his sparkling personality and piano playing. Most important, he was a favorite of Principal and Mrs. Daniel Webster Abercrombie, and Abercrombie served as a father figure during Porter’s four years at the Academy.
- Joseph H. Walker
In his junior year, Cole Porter became a leader outside of the classroom: He was an editor of the Vigornia, the school newspaper; he won the first prize in the Dexter speaking contest; he had a lead role in the school play; and he was the leader of the Mandolin Club, which was the school band. In his senior year, he gained further recognition by being selected as a member of the Board of Monitors, the Academy’s student government organization. He was also the Valedictorian of the Class of 1909.
Because he served on the Board of Monitors, Cole was allowed more freedom than most to leave campus. Worcester was a thriving city, and downtown, the center of commerce and entertainment, was just a 15-minute ride by trolley car. For young people, Easton’s Ice Cream parlor was the axis of the Worcester universe, and Academy boys like Col
e Porter were known to visit on Friday afternoon after classes. Cole attended musical shows in Worcester theaters, including the Franklin Square Theater(now the Hanover Theater). On the morning after he saw a show, Cole’s classmates recalled his playing its songs on the Megaron piano, and they were amazed that he could play all the tunes from memory.
Cole studied Greek in Dr. Abercrombie’s class, and it was there that he learned that the sound and sense of the words of a song must be merged as one. Late in life, Cole Porter stated that it was because of Abercrombie’s teaching that he determined to write both the music and lyrics to his songs; and it is for this reason that Dr. Abercrombie is considered a major influence on his life’s work.
Though Cole Porter had little contact with Worcester Academy after his graduation, two truths remain: His years on the Hilltop greatly influenced his career; and, through regular performances of his musicals and songs, Porter’s musical legacy remains alive at Worcester Academy today.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Friday, January 8th, 2010
by Vineet Vallum
Not having mattered, the meaning unknown.
Paint is splattered,
For the point to be shown.
Across the piece, colors spread scattered.
Drips of emotions in the known
Give the idea of ease,
Yet to be shown.
Colors so vivid, act to please,
As the feelings of confusion continue to disown.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
by Antonio Viva
With the start of a new year, it is always fun to look back and try to determine what was the most memorable or notable event, occurrence, invention or development of the year. So try think back to the past year and identify/make a case for what you believe was “the” thing, person or event that will define 2009!
Photo Credit: basibanget
Popularity: 2% [?]
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
by frank.callahan
Photograph of Lewis J. Warner
Worcester Academy graduate Lewis J. Warner was the son of Harry Warner, one the original Warner Brothers of motion picture fame. Harry served as the president of the movie company for thirty years until shortly before his death in 1958. Born Hirsch Wonsal in a family of Polish Jews, Harry was the oldest of the four Warner brothers and the only one of them born in Poland. At first the brothers owned theaters in Pennsylvania and Ohio, but then they moved to Hollywood in order to make movies to distribute for their theaters. After initially struggling, they gambled on the idea of talking pictures and eventually owned 250 theaters in which to screen their films. After that point, the company became known thoughout the world for its movies.
Lewis came to the Academy in 1926 as a junior and immediately became involved in all aspects of school life. He played on the football and baseball teams and served as the vice president of the Athletic Association. He was an editor of the Vigornia, was president of the Junior Class and vice president of the Senior Class. He was president of the Agora debate club in his senior year and participated in the Worcester – Williston debate. It is no wonder that he was a member of the drama club, and, he served as a cabinet member of the YMCA as well. He organized and was the first president of the Worcester Academy Boys Club. Through his influence, the first movies were shown at the school in the area now known as the Andes Pit Theater. In fact, the projectors were donated by his father. The original donation was for silent films, but Harry promised that as soon as sound projectors became available, he would send one, so that Worcester Academy would have the distinction of being the first school in the world to have a sound projector. During his second year after graduating from Worcester Academy, Lewis donated the sound projector. The Warners had a home in the Bronxville section of New York, and some alumni remember visiting the family estate. After graduating from Worcester Academy in 1928, Lewis matriculated to Columbia University.
Sadly Lewis J. Warner passed away just three years after graduating from Worcester Academy on April 4, 1931. He died of pneumonia at Doctors Hospital in New York City on East End Ave and 87th Street. Since February 14 of that year, he had been seriously ill from septic poisoning, which began in Havana, Cuba after the extraction of a tooth. His condition became so severe that on February 25 his uncle Albert Warner flew from Hollywood to Havana arriving on February 27, where his parents were already at his bedside. On March 4, he was flown by a special airplane from Havana to Miami, and then moved by train to New York. There he had an abscessed tooth extracted. Reportedly the dentist was the father of Burton Stark ‘32, who also went on to become a dentist. But pneumonia soon developed, then double pneumonia. Two days before his passing, the New York Times reported that Lewis was in critical condition. Then, he appeared to be considerably improved in the morning of April 4, but late in the afternoon a fatal relapse set in. Besides his parents, he was survived by two sisters, Doris and Betty. His age was 22 and he died at a young age because of an infection which today could be treated with antibiotic drugs.
Shortly after his death, his father notified the school of his intention to build a memorial to his son. A full movie theater had been an idea he and Lewis had discussed during Lewis’ years as a student at the Academy. Faculty remembered that Lewis took great pleasure in the installation of the talking picture apparatus and that it was the first school in the country to have this equipment. In fact, he took joy in planning the building with his parents. It would be a theater, but more than that, it would be a movie theater possibly the first built for a school anywhere in the U. S.
A 2008 documentary called “The Brothers Warner” gave a detailed history of the Warner family and Warner Brothers Pictures and depicted Lewis as the heir-apparent of the family empire because he was Harry’s only son. If he had lived a longer life, it is safe to say that he would have been very in
Portrait of Lewis J. Warner
volved with the school and that the Academy would have felt the impact of his dynamic personality in all aspects of school life.
Popularity: 5% [?]
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