Head of School, Susan Stone, LFS trustee and alumni parent, Eloise Smyrl, and I (Nancy Werner) had the pleasure of lunching with world-renowned architect and LFS alumnus,Robert Venturi x'36 in his Manayunk office on a cold day in January '09. Robert remembers Louise Hart who was then Principal, Tr. Mabel, and Mrs. Charlotte Cope, and he remembers Frank Mustin and Barcley White. He was interested in architecture even then and remembers two Meeting Houses in Lansdowne - one on the school campus and one on Owen and Stratford Avenues. Venturi recently designed the chapel on Episcopal Academy's new campus.

Sara G. Price Keates '38 entered Lansdowne Friends School in 1931.  Her favorite memories of LFS include outdoor Kindergarten and her third grade teacher, Miss Armor, who was her favorite teacher of all her school days!  She remembers learning French and the names of constellations.  Sara includes gardening and painting among her hobbies and is a hospital volunteer.

Jack Swope '46 has established an investment advisory firm in Wayne, PA - - Stillwater Capital Advisors.  Currently the firm manages approximately $350 million for over 300 families.

Joy Hinton Schaible writes, "I have such fond memories of Lansdowne Friends - in particular Gladys Chilton, Pearl Hoop and Teacher Mary."

Priscilla Wyatt Davis '50 reconnected with LFS via the school website. She writes, "I was known as the daughter of 'Mr. and Mrs. Fred'.  My father was the caretaker of the school and the Meeting House.  We lived in a small two story house on the grounds which was demolished in the early 50's." 

Jean Loft Seiler '57 responded to a photograph of her class in the last newsletter. (Thanks for helping to identify, Jean.) "Hard to believe that was fifty years ago! I enjoyed the reunion we had in February 1999 for the classes of 1956 and 1957, seeing the school and some of my classmates again after all those years. I have very happy memories of my school days at LFS, and I continue to be proud of the school as I read about it in the Newsletter."

Elsa Graitcer Hetherington '59 reconnected with us via Facebook.  Elsa remembers LFS teachers Jane, Florence, Mary, Gladys, and Marjorie. 

We are pleased to have the granddaughter of Virginia Mustin Gourlie '61, and the great-granddaughter of Frank Mustin '36 in the LFS Pre-Kindergarten class!

Many members of the LFS community contacted us over the summer to let us know about LFS alumna Andrea Lee's narrative, Altered State, which was published in the June 30, 2008 New Yorker. Lee describes preparing a class recitation for Meeting for Worship as a "proud member of the Lansdowne Friends fifth grade."

"We're excited, but not in a stomach-churning way. Since second grade, we've attended weekly meeting: an island in time, a morning half hour suspended in the beeswax smell of the old meetinghouse, set beside the school on a golf-green lawn, shaded by a fat copper beech. […] We let the silence flow back. And, gradually, something becomes clear: a kind of radiant indifference to words, mistaken or correct. What the elders, the Friends, pass on to us this morning is an inkling of how strong silence is. Essential; eternal. But common, in the best sense. Always there, if we can only listen for it. Inside or outside meeting."