There have been lots of reminders for me from all kinds of places that this week would have seen the 100th birthday of my friend and co-conspirator, Dr. Audrey Evans. Audrey came to see me, when she retired from her medical practice at CHOP, to say that she was suffering a little depression, and needed something to do. She knew that I was working on plans to establish a school and she liked the idea. I told her I wasn’t ready to go yet, but while I got my act together she could at least walk my dogs from time to time. This she did with a great enthusiasm.
A pivotal moment in the story of the founding of St. James School came when we had concluded a couple of weeks of camp on West Clearfield Street, and we were back on site for clean-up. We were working outside, behind the locked gates of what was then the main entrance. Audrey was there helping to clean-up, like any sensible octogenarian. As the day went on, children who had been with us for camp the previous weeks kept coming by to see if anything was happening there. But all we could do was tell them, from behind the locked gate, that camp was over for that year.
Audrey took offense at the fact of the locked gate: a barrier between her and something she could see that children needed. And so she exclaimed what would become the motto for the effort to get the school going: We have to unlock this gate! God was good to us all when he gave us Audrey.
I know of another locked gate behind which I have recently begun doing some work. As at St. James, this gate ostensibly protects an old place that has seen better days, in a neighborhood that needs people and institutions who care about the families and the children who live there. I have been involved in opening the gate there for children and their families before, and I know that it is a special place where things and people can grow. When the gate is unlocked in this place, good things happen, but it is not unlocked nearly enough.
This gate is located on Germantown Avenue, and it opens into the marvelous gardens, farm, and orchard of Grumblethorpe, about which I will have more to say in the near future.
Going behind the locked gate for this first time in a couple of years, I discovered, the other day, the lovely picket fence in a state of advancing disrepair, in this old place. And I determined that I would work to raise the money to repair that old picket fence. I intend to do so; don’t be surprised when I ask you to help. (If you already know you want to help, you can make a contribution online here. Please indicate that your gift is for the Grumblethorpe Fence.)
But I hear Audrey’s voice inside my head - or more likely quite near my heart. Audrey is clucking at me that, yes, of course, it would be a lovely thing to fix the fence, but the real work that needs to be done is to open the gate, more and more. I have heard her tell me this before. And as before, I believe she is correct.
Grumblethorpe was the home of the Wister family, for whom the flowering vine wisteria is named. The wisteria will be in bloom at Grumblethorpe this spring, and I will let you know when the gate will be open so you can come to see it… and maybe help us fix the fence. Stay tuned!
As usual, I am SO proud of you!