A Year in the Life
of a 
Marist Brother

  by Jeptha H. Lanning

It was a sunny morning in late August of 1953, the exact date I no longer recall. Morning Prayer, Meditation, Mass and Little Hours were over; breakfast had just ended in the refectory when Brother Paul Ambrose rang the bell and began to announce the Nomination List for 1953-1954.

There was a hush of expectancy as one hundred plus scholastics pondered what the next year would bring. Many wondered if their time at Marian College would be cut short and to which of the establishments they might be sent. For others, including myself, the question was not if but where. A month earlier a number of us had graduated and now we awaited our first teaching assignment.

For me it was a short wait. Early on in the reading, Marist Preparatory, the Juniorate in Esopus, was mentioned with the rundown of its faculty. Suddenly, my name, Brother Stephen Anthony, was spoken followed by a gasp from several scholastics. Brother Paul paused briefly and then went on. Jeppy Lanning was going back to Esopus five years after he had left to enter the Novitiate. Stunned would be the best word to describe my feelings at this time.

I really did not pay much attention as the reading of the nominations went on.  Esopus, me, so young, no real experience in teaching, not perpetually professed; my mind was in a whirl. Breakfast was now over and congratulations were being exchanged. Employments would be done cursorily that morning and another exodus would soon be underway. Brother Paul had mentioned that a bus would be available that afternoon to take a large number to the houses in New York City. But what about me? I spoke briefly with him after breakfast about getting over to Esopus and he mentioned that I should call Brother Joseph Damian, my teacher of French 1946-47 and now Director of the community and Master of Juniors. Later that morning, I made the call and Brother Joseph told me that he would be over after supper that evening to pick me up.

The day flew by. That afternoon many of us bid farewell to those heading for the city schools. How often would our paths ever cross again? What did the future hold? That evening, toward sunset, Brother Joseph arrived in the station wagon. We shook hands; my new shiny black trunk was put in the back. We left the property, headed south through town and then across the bridge to Ulster County and my new assignment. I was 21 and a month short of my 22nd birthday. 

Esopus in 1953 was a far different place from the one that I had left in 1948. The building project begun in 1950 under the direction of Brother Francis Xavier was fast nearing completion. Recruitment was booming. The original English Village had been enlarged. A dormitory wing, a library and recreation hall had been added as well as a new gymnasium/auditorium and the former small gym was being converted into a chapel. The old dormitories on the upper floors were now classrooms. The one below was a dining room; a kitchen, pantry and faculty dining room were new additions. Colonel Payne’s mansion was now home to the Provincial House community where all would gather for Mass until the new chapel would be completed. My room with private bath (now that was a change!) would be in the new wing down the hall from those of Brother Joseph Damian and Brother Edmund Alphonse.

The faculty, too, had changed. Gone to new assignments were Brothers George Robert, Regis James, Stephen Urban and James Damian. I now joined Brothers Luke Driscoll, Joseph Abel and John Bosco on the teaching staff. Brother Joseph Albert was the prefect, Brother Edmund, the treasurer, Brother John Patrick, the general worker, Brother Stephen Edward, the tailor and Brother Francis Xavier who would commute to Marian to teach and return to Esopus to build. In addition, the chefs that year were fellow scholastics, Brothers Brian Francis and William Paul.

The last days of August and into early September were extremely busy ones. The seniors were going off to Tyngsboro as postulants; “newcomers” were arriving; the “old-timers” were in charge and I was getting ready to tackle my new classes: Religion II and Home Room teacher, English II, Latin I and French I--- only four, but four preparations plus some study hall assignments. It would be a challenging year and I hoped that I would measure up to it. 

Sunday morning before Labor Day and the opening of school on Tuesday, Brother Luke suggested that the two of us take a walk that afternoon to review my upcoming classes. After Sunday dinner we set out, crossed over 9W and as we walked we began to discuss what would eventually become my course outlines for the year. I have fond memories of Luke thumbing through Smith, First Year Latin, --the text I first encountered back in 1945 as a St. Agnes Freshman -- and indicating where I should be in the text by certain dates. We also talked about my English, Religion and French classes and in two hours or so I had the beginnings of my plans for the coming year in some sort of shape. In a sense, Luke was my cooperating teacher and mentor that year and I will be forever grateful for his help.

Classes began. There I stood in the sophomore classroom upstairs in the old “villa section”, my mind a jumble of thoughts. When I entered the Juniorate in 1946 it had been my dormitory, dedicated to St. Joseph. Now it was a classroom. Ready adaptation to changing realities has always seemed to be a hallmark of American Marist and this was but one more example.

Looking out at those expectant faces and conscious that we were both “sizing-up” the situation caused me to wonder if I was really “ready” for this new phase of my life. I do wish now that I had kept my class register of that year, but even now almost fifty years later I can recall many of them, my first students. As I think back, names leap to mind. George Chelius, the class clown, Mike Cappi who never sat still, John Smyth who one day would spill a bottle of ink over his shirt during a test, John Stapleton, who could not master those declensions and conjugations, the two Gaudets from CCHS, Lawrence - Robert and Roland, unrelated and very shy, Larry Whartenby, quiet, reserved and very bright and Bill Collins who always looked at me in a sort of quizzical fashion.

Others would over the years become much more identified with the Marist Life... John Reul who would die quite young as a Marist Brother, Owen Lafferty, once a monk, now a priest, who one day gave such a stirring recital of “Gunga Din” to subsequent great applause that John Bosco teaching math next door came to my room to see what was the commotion, George Fontana who has occupied positions of leadership in the Order, Bill Lambert, nephew of Brother Ulrich Chanel and grand-nephew of Brother Eugene Francis and one who would distinguish himself in educational work in New England, John Bantz, a recent recruit from Mount St. Michael, who would one day become Director of that community, John Wilcox, who would in time become a professor of religion at Manhattan College and Ronald Pasquariello who would later join me on the faculty at Marist College and become one of my evaluators for promotion to Associate Professor. As the events of life unfolded, fifteen years later Ron and John, pursuing studies in Europe, would oversee my hospital stay in Munich, Germany in 1969 during my convalescence from an attack of viral pneumonia after my second novitiate. But that would be in the distant future.

On the feast of St. Linus in late September, I attended my first community “blow-out” to celebrate the name day of Brother Linus William, my former Master of Juniors and at that time Provincial of the American Province. After my failed year in 1947 trying to master geometry, he worked with me during evening recreation through May and June 1948 so that I was able to pass the Regents examination with an 85! Brother Linus was always “larger-than-life”, a father figure and guide to us as juniors, and I will always be grateful for the privilege of being one of “his boys”.  In June 1987, I would be one of the pallbearers at his burial.

This night it was a group gathering of both the Prep and Provincial House communities plus some faculty over from Marian. We met in the high ceiling, wood-paneled room that once was the Juniorate refectory. Our host that evening was Brother Paul Ernest who three years before had introduced me to the intricacies of logic and epistemology. The evening was one of good food, drink and fellowship, but it would be the last time I would see and talk with Brother George Francis Byrne who would die suddenly in October of heart disease. We had played touch football on the same team in the Scholasticate league games and he had taught me twenty-four credits of history and economics. Down- to-earth, always approachable with a wry sense of humor he would be the last Marist buried in the cemetery in Poughkeepsie.

The days -- now filled with the routines of community exercises, classroom and study hall duties, occasional supervisory stints of recreation and work periods -- quickly lengthened into weeks as autumn made its annual appearance in the Hudson Valley. One of my delights would be to walk the roads, the woods now in their most colorful dress, blue- sky days with the air crisp, clear and clean and with a stillness which always seemed to pervade the property. Now, whenever I return, it seems that Esopus is “the land that time forgot”. Many memories resurface and I am young again with my whole life before me.

In the reconfiguration of the villa section in the early 50’s a small faculty dining room had been fashioned adjoining the kitchen area. It was there that I would absorb much Province lore as well as helpful hints about teaching as I now became more and more a part of the community. There at two long refectory tables joined together we sat. 

Today, scraps of conversation come to mind: the second novitiate experience of Brothers Joseph Abel and Joseph Albert who traveled there together in the 30’s, and their hilarious imitations of Brother Paul Stratonic and Brother Francis Borgia, major superiors in the early 40’s, Brother Luke and his take on the golden toothpick, a gift from the senior class of 1952 - 1953, Brother Edmund Alphonse who once spoke about the fire which destroyed the first Juniorate building in Tyngsboro and the story of the junior who one day would die in his arms, Brother John Patrick and his adventures with the State Troopers stationed in West Park and that master story-teller himself, Brother Francis Xavier, the builder of the original brick gymnasium in Poughkeepsie, presently Marian Hall, and the guiding force behind the renovations and construction at the Prep now just winding down. His accounts of the summer seasons of the brothers at Camp Saint Anne located on Isle La Motte on Lake Champlain in Vermont were informative and enriching but perhaps his most interesting and thought-provoking recital concerned “Dac”, Brother Dacianus, one-time Provincial in the 20’s who later left the Order. I try to reproduce that supper-time narrative. “Brothers, he was a man far ahead of his times. He would have bought all the way to Violet Ave. in Poughkeepsie. As for the Mount, if he had his way, he would have liked to extend it as far down as Baychester Ave. and in time have an institution to rival that of Fordham.   Brothers, he was very much ahead of his time, very misunderstood. They didn’t understand him over there”. A brief pause then occurred; nobody said a word and in a moment the conversation resumed on another topic. 

It was now getting colder. The smell of burning leaves often filled the air as November moved quickly on to Thanksgiving. I would have a brief family visit at home from the day itself through the following Sunday. Need I write that I had many a story to tell.

The renovated former gymnasium was now taking shape as a chapel. The site wherein as juniors we had played basketball and staged our plays and minstrel shows would soon resemble a “little church”, fashioned in the traditional manner as the reforms of Vatican II were still a decade away. It would be simply furnished, uncluttered and possessing a small side altar honoring the Venerable Marcellin Champagnat, founder of the Marist Brothers, soon to be beatified in 1955 and eventually canonized a saint in 1999.  

December 8th and the feast of the Immaculate Conception came and went and soon Christmas was coming closer. At the Prep the tempo of life quickened. The juniors were busy with their studies and sports, but decorations were being hung, singing practice took on a new urgency and there was a growing sense of expectancy present. Suddenly it was Midnight Mass with the Gregorian Chant of the solemn Introit with the words, “Puer natus est”, followed by the candle-lit reveillon and the juniors opening their presents the following morning. The relaxed days of Christmas week for the students and faculty alike meant more recreation time and a pause from the demands of study. For me it was a welcome break from class preparations, instruction and correction of tests and papers.

Soon we entered the new year, 1954. Winter was now upon us. Often on Wednesday afternoons in January and February, while the boys played hockey on the lake or basketball in the gym, I would take long walks through the property admiring the stark beauty of the natural scene. I enjoyed wending my way down the river road, the trees bare, snow on the ground, the crunch of ice beneath my feet. Sometimes I would pause to look up the hill which led to the mansion, remembering sleigh rides and toboggan runs of just a few years back. Later at the boathouse I would gaze out into the river looking at the frozen, broken blocks of ice. On one occasion as I stood by the boathouse I spied a red fox silently regarding me close by the red-tiled gazebo at the end of the dock.

Years later when I had the opportunity to read and study Wordsworth I began to understand how my own retrospection of former happenings paralleled those of the poet in his wandering in the English Lake District. So many past moments recollected “in tranquillity” of my Esopus days 1946-1948. 

Reflecting back upon that year, I realize that is some respects it was a lonely one. After the close companionship and camaraderie of the training houses, I was now very much “on my own”. With the exception of John Bosco Normadin -- and he was six years my senior --the staff was a much older group. True, Brian Downdes (Brian Francis) and Walter “Otto” Krueger (William Paul) had been in the Scholasticate with me; however their duties in the kitchen did not provide me with much opportunity to socialize with them. The television room had not yet arrived so I would spend my free time reading such novels as The Cardinal by Henry Morton Robinson, Nicholas Monseratt’s The Cruel Sea and 1984 by George Orwell. I had a small collection of spoken word records and I would while away some free hours listening to John Geilgud’s Hamlet, Macbeth by Alec Guiness and the acclaimed 1943 production of Othello starring Paul Robeson, Jose Ferrer and Uta Hagan. The Prep library had a few Gilbert and Sullivan recordings which I would enjoy once in a while during the evening recreation.

Years later I would learn that it was the former Provincial, Brother Thomas Austin, who had been chosen as Assistant General in the spring of 1954, who wanted me to begin my teaching career at Marist Prep. In the early sixties, I would serve as one of his Resident Proctors at Catholic University. There, on one occasion, he mentioned that the original plan was to send two scholastics to Esopus, one to teach English, me, the other to teach Spanish, Brother Mark Anselm, James Gormley, who had entered the Juniorate with me in 1946. At the last moment it was not to be. A sudden shift in assignments found Jim at St. Mary’s, Manhasset as a teacher of Spanish and there I was in Esopus. 

I sometimes wondered if Jimmy would have been a better fit than I. My coming had necessitated a few changes. Unfortunately, I had never taken a course in Spanish.

Many of the incoming and present day juniors had one or two years of the language. What to do? It was decided that I did have a sufficient background in Latin and French to be able to handle those first year subjects. And so many of the juniors found themselves beginning again a new course of language study. As an English major, the prose and poetry of the second year course of study would not prove too difficult and Religion with its emphasis on Church History would be relatively easy. However, four preparations are four preparations! 

Teaching Latin I was fun. The class of about fifteen was quite bright. The intricacies of the subject did not faze many of them and by the beginning of March a number moved up and out into Brother Luke Driscoll’s Latin II giving me time to work with the slower students. French was another matter; here there would be more pronunciation, more speaking, even writing of the language in place of simply translating Latin into English. Even though I had studied it for five years, French was in a way more demanding than I had at first realized. English with composition writing and the study of literature I felt I was ready for.

Nevertheless, those gray winter afternoons going through George Eliot’s Silas Marner provided a challenge - as if I needed one! Much later, during a course in Nineteenth Century British Fiction, I found out that this novel, with its economical treatment of plot, characterization and setting, was most convenient to insert into an anthology. So much for book selections! Religion II with the stories of the early church, monasticism, the crusades, simony and lay investiture, the reformation and counter-reformation, the church in the modern world provided much factual information but offered little opportunity for serious reflection. And so the year sped on. 

The Director of the community, Brother Joseph Damian, would often appear to be somewhat silent and austere -- even forbidding, but he could enjoy a good party and loved a funny joke. I had the opportunity to meet with him in a more formal way during those “monthly direction” sessions. There I got to know him perhaps better than many in the province. I found him to be most kind and considerate of the beginning teacher who was often filled with self-doubt and discouragement about his abilities. I remember him on one occasion giving me a piece of advice that I would share later on with the student teachers at Marist College. “There is something I would love to give you but I can’t. It’s experience. It takes time and effort to acquire. Just be patient and give yourself a chance.” So very, very true.

Another faculty member who made a deep impression on me was Brother Joseph Abel. Early in the fall, his elder brother Jimmy had sold the family home on Water St. in Poughkeepsie and moved into one of the cottage rooms. Joe Abe was very devoted to him, looking after his needs, making sure he was comfortable living with the “monks”. Besides teaching the history classes at the Prep, Joe Abe was the Provincial Supervisor of Schools and now winding down in his duties in that office.

I remember one evening after the juniors’ study hall. I walked into the senior classroom and sat at one of the student’s desks while Joe Abe remained in his place at the teacher’s desk atop the little platform. We talked a while and then he mentioned he had an idea. “Suppose in place of the evening reading during the juniors’ supper hour, it was decided to substitute classical music selections. A brief introductory commentary could be given followed by the selection. Would not that serve to enrich their appreciation of music and provide a new learning experience for the boys?” Right away, I was excited. The idea was great, fantastic! What a range of possibilities: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, perhaps even in time Gilbert and Sullivan, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Gershwin. We were both much taken with the thought of it. But it was not to be. He did follow through and mention it to the Director who was cool to it. Perhaps it was too different, too radical and a departure from the status quo. Joe Abe would later become Director of Camp Marist and our paths would cross periodically. Warm, genial, caring, he was always the perfect gentleman. I met him for the last time in Manhattan on the occasion of the archdiocesan celebration of the coming of the Brothers to the United States. 

In the late winter of 1954, Brother Joseph Orens passed away. He was also known more familiarly as “George Washington”. I never knew him personally and he was not part of the community. However, he would be the first Marist laid to rest in the new cemetery in Esopus. The site was planned by Brother Edmund Alphonse, the treasurer of the house and long-time singing instructor. There on a day in March the community celebrated the first burial service with the internment of Brother Joseph Orens. Today, whenever I return to Esopus, I try to visit the cemetery. I like to take some time to read the headstones of the many men who lie beneath. So many memories of experiences shared, of the parts played in my life by so many; a whole host of thoughts rush back upon the stage of memory. It is always a profoundly moving experience.

Early in March 1954, the Juniors made their annual three-day retreat. For the faculty it meant a brief respite from the regular routine and it was a chance for me to enjoy a brief family visit in Brooklyn. Having been Master of Juniors in Esopus from 1942-1948, Brother Linus William, now the Provincial, understood the rather intense life of the training house and the need for a periodic “break” for both faculty and students. At home I could catch up on family doings and, in a sense, wind down for a few days.

Then it was April. The days were getting warmer, longer and spring had finally arrived. Now it was time for the annual week-long trip to Mount Saint Michael Academy. During the fifties, it was customary for the perpetually professed Brothers in the greater New York area to use Marist Prep as the site for the “Easter retreat”. From Wednesday in Holy Week until Wednesday in Easter Week, the juniors would be quartered at the Mount with access to its chapel, cafeteria, dormitories and athletic fields. With the solemn last days before Easter and the joyful celebration of the new liturgical season, classroom work was put aside. For me it was a chance to touch base with many of my former classmates, themselves temporarily professed and teaching at the Mount. Our retreat would be in the latter days of August. 

Back at the Prep, I found myself assisting Brother Luke Driscoll as he readied his production of Brother Orchid for the juniors’ families on Mothers’ Day. Although I had been active in theater work during my years in training, theater work in Esopus provided me with the opportunity of working not with my peers but with younger students. Teaching at the Prep during 1953-1954, I had the opportunity to direct some skits, sing-alongs and two one-act plays: “A Night at the Inn” and “The Valiant”. My year in Esopus taught me much about preparation, patience and consideration in the staging of plays. My theatrical experiences that year gave me a grounding that would serve me well in future high school and college productions.

That spring, Brother Linus came for his annual visitation of the community. While in direction, he mentioned to me that for the following year he planned to send me to one of our “outside communities”. I was due to make perpetual profession during the summer of 1955 and he thought it best that I would spend at least one year in a more typical community before the taking of final vows. I cannot say that I was disappointed at the news. I did feel somewhat isolated in a much older community and began to look forward to another year in another setting where I could teach more English classes and perhaps direct some plays. That fall I was assigned to Mount Saint Michael where I found myself teaching classes in English III and IV and staging Command Decision. I would be 23; a number of the boys in English IV class were 17 and 18, but I was ready. My “internship year” would make all the difference. 

During that spring I found myself being called upon for some prefecting duties. Brother Joseph Albert who himself had been Master of Juniors in Tyngsboro and Director General in Poughkeepsie had been prefect since 1948. He could seem somewhat dour and gruff in manner but we hit it off rather well. Much of his adult life he had been bothered with ulcers and the spring of 1954 found him suffering from more frequent attacks. Several times he asked me to take over the Wednesday afternoon recreation periods, often overseeing softball games followed, as we moved into June, with swim periods in the Hudson. In later years I would think of those days, the boys swimming, me standing with a whistle at the ready and not really conscious of the danger ever-present. Throughout all those years, we were most fortunate.

One day in May, Brother Joseph Abel asked me to draw up the Provincial examinations for Latin I and English II. I was taken aback. What did I know? Just what experience did I have? He can’t be serious. But he was. So there I was reviewing old tests, figuring out patterns of questions, formulating possible passages for translation or analysis, striving not to make a fool of myself and hoping that no one would ever find out who made Latin I and English II in 1954. In those days, Brother Tarcisius, “Tarcy” to those who loved him, was the college printer and the exams would be printed at Marian. It was a real thrill for me to see the finished product, “my tests”. Administering the tests to my students, I kept wondering what they would think about my making those Provincial Exams. But of course not a word was said, not a hint given.

Now it was the end of June. My days at the Prep were fast drawing to a close. I sensed that the faculty knew that I would not be returning in the fall but nothing was ever said and I did not allude to it. At the time I cannot recall if I ever discussed it with Brother Joseph Damian or not. I guess that I might have but I cannot be sure. And so I cleaned my room, packed my trunk and waited to go back to Poughkeepsie to work on the Project for the summer and to work on the construction of the original Fontaine Hall.

I think of 1953-1954, my “internship year” of ten months as an opportunity to begin teaching under the guidance of several highly qualified mentors with whom I was permitted to serve. It was a year to sample and try many things and grow as an individual and as a religious. Today, whenever I visit Esopus I feel that I am surrounded by so many “ghosts” and so many past experiences all of which contributed mightily toward my development. 

And so for me, Esopus has always been a most precious place. It is said that although he was a long time removed from his native Dublin, James Joyce could summon it up and in his mind’s eye see it once again. In much the same way, Esopus still remains with me.

Let me close with a collage of memories that serve to help me capture some of Esopus: the quick turn off Route 9W and the road past the Gatehouse...so quiet, so serene; Brother Felician’s gardens and the memories of those luscious strawberries in June; the mansion of Colonel Payne with its grandeur of design and the story told of when the architect questioned the use of marble rather than English fieldstone, Payne asked him if the marble itself would last ten years. Assured that it would but in time would discolor, Payne simply said, “Put it up”. (Told to me by Brother Edmund); the dock beside the boathouse, the place of so many picnics and of boys singing around the fire on summer nights; the walk toward the English Village and the big triangle with those magnificent trees in autumnal glory; the large white clock overlooking the quadrangle of buildings almost a sentinel keeping time; the little pond, “our lake”, the scene of hockey games in the winter and the cry of hawks as we arose in the early dawn; the cemetery with one headstone in 1954 and now row upon row of the final resting places of so many, many wonderful men with whom I was privileged to spend some time.

What has gone before is but an attempt to reflect back upon some happenings in my life in Esopus. Today, now over seventy, what a source of pleasure they are. My Esopus days are never very far from me and for the memories I am deeply grateful.