Alums gather for final Greer School reunion

Alums gather for final Greer School reunion
At Child’s Chapel, located at the Fountains retirement community in Millbrook, once Hope Farm and later Greer School. From left, Glenn Fillman, Barbara Anderson, Jim Anderson, Cheryl Montaigne and Jack Miller. 
Photo by Judith O’Hara Balfe

MILLBROOK —  Greer School alumni, spouses and friends gathered in the auditorium at the Fountains on Wednesday, June 7, for what they said was their last reunion. The school has been closed for many years and the youngsters who attended it are aging.

Greer School started life as Hope Farm in 1906, founded by David Hummell Greer, who had been an Episcopalian bishop of New York. The school housed and educated disadvantaged children of Dutchess County, and many of its students came from single-parent families.

Greer, Dr. Russell A. Hibbs and Florence Rapallo purchased the property from the Brothers of Nazareth, who had a boy’s school there called Priory Farm. Already on site was the large main house, which was built in 1896 and served, in the beginning, all the needs of Hope Farm.

Thomas Hazzard, also an Episcopal clergyman, was named the director, and he was responsible for many of the original buildings erected after Hope Farm began. He retained that position until 1917.

Les Greene is not an alumnus, but his father was, and so was his uncle. “The law in New York state at the time said that there could only be a certain number of homes with no man or father present,” Greene recounted. “Many of the children were put on what were called ‘orphan trains’ and sent out West.

“My father and uncle were going to be sent on one of those trains, but my aunt knew someone on the board at Hope Farm. She got them sent there instead. That was around 1913. They went in as Baptists, but came out as Episcopalians. But they had a wonderful experience, and even though my father isn’t here, I come to some of the reunions, maybe half a dozen times in the past 20 years.”

At the Fountains auditorium, food was served, speeches were made, and after lunch, alumni President John Hudnor showed a film and photos of the Greer School, the students over the years, and past reunions.

“We had dances,” said Hudnor. “We had Friday night movies. We played sports, competing with local teams from the area, Millbrook, Pine Plains, Pleasant Valley, and some further away. We won championships. We didn’t miss out on anything.”

Jim Anderson, who now lives in Boca Raton, Florida, attended with his wife, Barbara. He also had many fond memories of Greer School, although he was in the first class of Greer students who graduated from Millbrook High School, after the students began attending public high school, in 1964.

The last Greer High School yearbook was published in 1963. Information on exactly when the school closed is unclear, but by the 1980s, it was under the direction of Greer-Woodycrest Children’s Services, a nonprofit, and in the 1980s, received many Haitian refugees.

Later, Watermark Retirement Communities bought the property and it became the Fountains, which has hosted the many reunions of Greer School over the years.

Many of the event’s participants were sad to think that this reunion would be the last one, and they walked the paths and visited Child’s Chapel and the cemetery, storing the memories for a time when there would be no more visits to the site of their old home and school.

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