Memories

The White House is magnificent in its presence and how it embodies the past and the Hawken tradition. It was always warm and inviting with the libraries, fireplaces and wood floors, where great friendships were nurtured around a hearty meal. It represents the glory of the past and the beginning of Hawken's evolution to full high school matriculation. It allowed teachers and students to connect at a different level during lunches and dinners and made Christmas even more festive. I miss it each year especially around this time of year.
~ Chris Royan ’67 
One day while dining in the White House I looked around at the rich paneling, beautiful windows and the porcelain horses staring back at me and realized how lucky I was to be a part of Hawken.  ~ Marla Esgar Robbins ’75 
My best White House memories are fairly simple, eating lunch with friends, sometimes squirreling away at the small round table in the back that is surrounded by windows.  Then I have especially fond memories of our reunions that were held there. We had a fantastic local blues band one year; being at the White House felt like coming home. Finally, I always enjoyed my time hanging out in the kitchen with Kuan, and simply talking about food and life. 
~ Peter Jacobson ’81 
I can’t speak of White House memories without first mentioning eating with friends, lots of great food, and fun seasonal decorations.  I found it to be a warm and welcoming place with its wood floors and the books and porcelain figurines on the shelves throughout. 

I have a framed picture of the White House in my office.  When asked what that building is I tell people that it’s where I ate lunch at my high school.  The most common response is: That’s not a cafeteria! That much is very true - the White House has always been, and always will be, so much more than a cafeteria to the Hawken community.    
~ Matt Salerno ’92 

Biggar’s Top 8

So many memories over so many years:
  1. As underclassmen, we were required to enter the White House from the east entrance leading to the basement, then wind our way upstairs. Pity the poor guy who thought he could sneak in the front door off the Great Lawn, as that was reserved for seniors and faculty…and the seniors made sure the underclassman who violated this tradition thought twice about doing it again!
  2. Family style lunches, with a faculty member presiding and serving each person’s plate. Students brought the meal to the table, cleared and then brought dessert, then cleared and cleaned the tables. When the faculty weren’t looking, patties of butter were flung from springing knives to the ceiling.
  3. School dances- listening and dancing to the Naughts, the Nomads and the Upstarts!
  4. Hawken’s first photography room was at the bottom of the stairs leading to the basement. Here we developed the black & white negatives from whatever activity we were shooting for the AffNo or Onyx, then printing using the enlarger. All of us signed our names to the inside of the wood paneled door which is still in place today!
  5. The infamous senior room in the basement, now known as the “overflow room,” where seniors would go to mingle and rest (yes, we had bunk beds, TV, stereo and a fridge. And, of course, a poster of Raquel Welch from the movie One Million Years BC on the wall). Beer was the downfall of the senior room in the spring of 1968.
  6. The first Summer Hummer alumni dinner dance (see link below) was held in the White House in May 1974 (the tent erected for the event the day before on the west lawn/garden area had blown down in a major thunderstorm).
  7. Having my 50th birthday party in the White House with a country western theme. Everyone came dressed in traditional western/cowboy wear except Al Klauss ’66, who came dressed as a native American Indian chief with a full headdress!
  8. And graduation was held on the lawn in front of the White House, with seniors and their families all seated in rows of chairs facing the pillars and front entrance.
~ Jeff Biggar ’68 

From 1977’s Summer Hummer

The great food fight of 1978. The fight lasted for at least 30 minutes and was in the room to the left as you enter the White House. There was food all over the walls.

Working in the White House basement water used to come down the back stairs into my office from the sun porch where the faculty ate lunch. I would squish around the carpet floor stepping on silver fish.

As you walk into the White House, on the left wall there is a picture of a house which one the Walter White daughters lived in during the 60's -80's. I believe the house is in Sumter, South Carolina.

In the 1975-81 years we used to have five straight weeks of phonathons in the White House.

The Kalberer family created and tended a Shakespeare Garden west of the sun porch.

The pictures of the Stockton [White daughter] wedding in the White House came from their governess who lived in a cottage on the south side of Mayfield. The Stocktons lived on the Southwest corner of Caves and Sherman roads.

Walter White Jr. came to visit with his Cousin Paul Vignos in a flashy sports car in 1979. Walter lived in Wazata, Minnesota.

From 1975-1981 there were four of us who worked in the basement. We did all of the fund raising and mailings. We had a huge Randall computer we called Randy. It stored all of the alumni gifts—ties, scarves, glasses, cuff links, chairs, etc.
~ Morrie Everett ’56 
Not only did I love the lunches at Hawken but I was a fixture in the kitchen washing dishes.  The preferred punishment for my shenanigans that warranted more than a slap on the wrist was spending time doing dishes.  The lunch ladies were amazing and I think they liked the help. 
~ Tom Murphy ’89 
One word: Crispitos.  I was never sure quite what was in them, which looking back probably let me enjoy them even more.
~ Brian Horsburgh ’06
I recall the musty smell of the downstairs "overflow" room where we gathered when the rest of the White House was packed. Tottenham took photos of Larry Nelson's freshman English class early in my 9th grade year on the steps of the sunken garden. Often times, I remember going to lunch twice a day during my senior year to be with my junior class swimming friends (and eat a second helping too). The rich chocolate brownies were caked with powdered sugar and creatively dubbed crack brownies (It wasn't me who made that up!!). I may have gone to lunch three times on those days and prayed Jerry wouldn't find out.
~ Andrea Hocevar ‘01
I remember Stouffer’s pizza.
 
The christian kids getting excited for matzo ball soup.  
 
The line out the front door.
 
Miss Carr being upstairs and her left handed colorful fish drawings.
 
And being afraid of the glass atrium because was it faculty or seniors that got to eat there?
 
And didn't Dr Carr live there at some point?
 ~ Brooke Buckley ‘94
I recall in the early 90s the Onyx and Aff No staffs were given space in the basement of the White House to set up computers and drafting equipment.  As the editor of the yearbook our senior year, I was given a key to the office that I could use to access the building during off hours.  In the Spring of '93 as we were finishing up the yearbook before graduation, I remember many a night in the basement of the white house finishing up proofs and drafts to send to the yearbook company.  At the time, I didn't appreciate the sense of responsibility and trust that I had being given by having access to a campus building off hours.  This trust and experience of working as a team to produce a quality product has been an incredible influence in my life.
~ Indrani Egleston '93
Growing up as a faculty child on campus, I have so many wonderful White House memories!! When I was young eating in the solarium with my parents and the other teachers always made me feel special and, as a senior, the library was our preferred room; especially the back round table.  I remember full Saturdays in the kitchen with my dad, siblings and students making caramel corn and granola for the Outsiders to sell.  However, my most joyous memories are of playing hide and seek with other faculty kids in the beautiful rooms, stairways and enchanted hideaways. 
~ Karen Warner Coyner ’83
"This is no ordinary cafeteria!" I recall feeling. The White House oozes history and reminds us of the generations who have walked before.

Ms. Carr at the top of the stairs with that most welcoming greeting like you were an old close friend she hadn't seen in decades. "Hellloooooo Ryan!"

Ultimately, I think of all those lunches with great friends.
~ Ryan Fitzgerald ’99
Timing your lunch to meet your friends there and sitting with them. The senior lunch tables. Apple brown betty. Helen Hochstetler. Wondering what was up that winding staircase. 
~ Adam Rich ’92
Apparently the dining staff realized that Shepherd's Pie wasn't an all-time favorite meal and each time it was served there was also an ample supply of bread along with peanut butter and apple jelly on the table.  I discovered that adding the apple jelly to the Shepherd's Pie turned it into quite a delicious offering.  No one else at my table seemed to share my pleasure at this discovery and hence I looked forward to lunches where Shepherd's Pie was served knowing that I would always be assured that it would end up an "all you can eat" lunch. 
~ Steve Umans ’66
My memories of the White House are of Hawken Chicken Patties; Apple Brown Betty with a block of sugar on top (I am sure the health-conscious police that govern the food today at Hawken would have a heart attack over that one); Working in the kitchen for two months during my free periods washing dishes as a “corrective behavior” action instituted by then assistant head of the school Madame Yadid; and last but not least taking trays and using them as the early version (1982-1985) of snow boards!!!
~ David Gunning ’85
Fond memories of snagging that first table in the library of the White House. Circa 1995! — with Dan Tyler ’98 .
~ Madeline Podnar Stewart '99
When I started teaching at Hawken in 1966, I was in awe of the White House - its beauty and its history. Fifty years later I have a store of White House memories.

One of my memories has to do with the family style eating at lunch time in those early years. Sitting at the head of a table with 8-10 boys, I was charged with filling their plates. It was a simple task when the entree was hot dogs or hamburgers, but when it was a large bowl of shepherd’s pie, for example, not already divided into individual servings, I was intimidated by the challenge. Frequently, after filling only 3 or 4 of the plates, I would realize I had been too generous and had less than half of the food remaining to serve the other boys and myself. I usually opted for just a salad for myself on those days..

In the 60s, there were three faculty families living on the second floor of the White House. Two of them, Math Department Chair Richard Davies and Athletic Director Rodger Rickard were directly involved in hiring me to be the varsity football coach and a mathematics teacher. In each case, we quickly became friends as did our wives and our children. So, many of my early memories of the White House are of times my family spent there with the Davies and the Rickards.

The White House Antique Shows are the source of a number of my other White House memories. Never was the history of the White House put on display as well as at that time of the year. A couple dozen large black and white photos of the “Circle W” were created and placed on easels on the first floor of the White House the week before and the weekend of the show. The Antique Show was started to raise funds for refurbishing the place. I remember the year the artist worked on a ladder in the late afternoons and evenings meticulously restoring the mural on the wall of the spiral staircase. In later years, Mary Ann and I were proud to be one of the antique dealers in the White House Show, thus making our small contribution to the continued restoration projects.

Remembering how beautiful the White House looked for so many special events is at the top of my list of White House memories - graduations. weddings, banquets and Christmas Parties. When my family decided we were going to have a Christmas Party Memorial in memory of Mary Ann last year, there was no discussion about where it would be. The White House was the perfect setting.
~Frank Brandt
I always had great memories of the walk to the White House (rain or shine) and as a way to decompress and enjoy the great Hochstetler kitchen (the meat loaf, captain crunch bars and of course, the apple brown Betty - perennial favorites). Over the years, I also got to know the kitchen staff (especially the servers) and stayed in touch with some of them for 30+ years to include honoring them at our alumni luncheons years later.
~ Martin Schulz ’82
I remember that the dry and pasty peanut butter (rumored to be Korean War surplus) and the fresh white bread were not a great match and any attempt to spread the PB on the bread resulted in something which seldom resembled a sandwich. We did find, however, that it had marvelous adhesive properties and when correctly applied to a stack of butter plates one could carry an entire table setting back to the kitchen by the top plate.
~ Howard Tuttle ‘67
Hot chocolate on cold winter mornings! The White House was always quiet when I had 1st band free so it was a great place to sit and talk with friends. I remember thinking that everyone should start their school day that way.
~ Jaclyn Young Shusterman ‘05

Submit Your White House Memory

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