MIKE NASH ’56

The Reginald and Rebecca Nash Scholarship was established in 1980 by the Class of 1940 to provide financial aid to a motivated male student who shows academic and athletic promise.  The scholarship remains in place as long as the student is enrolled at Milton.

My parents, Reggie and Becky Nash, made Milton Academy their home for over 40 years.  Many former students have commented on Reggie’s ability to “bring the Civil War to life” in his American History classes and how his teachings instilled in them a love of learning and an unending support for education. The guidance and leadership he provided to the Milton baseball teams for over 30 years is legendary and he commanded immense respect throughout the league.   Becky, who had graduated from the girls’ school in 1923, and subsequently worked in their business office, married Reggie in the early 1930's.  They became surrogate parents to the hundreds of students who resided in Robbins House over the years.  Having spent the first 14 years of my life in Robbins House, I can personally attest to the time and energy they invested in mentoring and making “a home away from home” for these boys. School life and the daily routine were often supplemented with spontaneous games and social activities.  Following Reggie’s death, Becky returned to the campus as secretary for the Milton Alumni Association.  This was the perfect position for Becky in that it afforded her an opportunity to reconnect with many former students, as well as meet and mentor new students. I have been told by friends there were some warm family stories shared with the later generations.

One of my most favorite parts of being connected to the Scholarship, to which anyone can contribute, is the yearly letter I receive from the current Nash Scholar. Over the years, I have been touched by their expressions of gratitude, their academic achievements, their leadership qualities and their athletic abilities.

In an effort to grow the funding, I have included a bequest to the Nash Scholarship Fund in my financial plans. It is our desire to continue to grow the scholarship funds to enable full financial aid for a student each year.  Through this Scholarship, promising young students will continue to enjoy the same quality educational experience that was fostered by Reggie and Becky Nash.

SUSAN HALL ’57 – still fired up

Today, when I play tennis within sight of a basketball court, I can’t wait to finish my match and go shoot hoops. This ripely middle-aged woman sinking the ball from the center line is jaw-dropping to the young African-Americans from whom I’ve scrounged a ball. Of course, I never learned the lay-up, because in my day we played on the half court and it was safer to shoot from outside. Drilled into me still are the muscle memories developed by Miss Sullivan and Miss Bailey in the Milton boys’ gym.

Just as firmly etched in my mind is the architecture of sentences Ms. Pundy would construct on her blackboard. When she called on me, she would search for my name: Katherine? Alice? Marion? Florence? Susan?—names of my aunts and mother, whom she had also taught. The Punderson sentence structure was central to our understanding of excellence, a standard we confronted at each turn on the campus. So, too, was the sense that we were not in a hothouse, but rather an incubator, getting fattened up intellectually and morally for the rigors of the tough outside world in which we were to engage.

Milton today scours the mean streets and distant countries to ferret out deserving talent. In widening its embrace, the school has remained remarkably vibrant and relevant. Now, late in life, I, too, have widened my embrace, teaching (for the first time) foster children in their foster homes throughout New York City—in Brownsville, Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant and the South Bronx. In bringing to these fragile children that same fired-up enthusiasm for learning I osmosed at Milton, I am giving back in a tangible way what I was so privileged to have been given. In my last act, it is give-back time for sure, and for this reason I have made a provision for Milton in my estate.

ANDREW WARD ’51 – a Milton reconnect

As I am now comfortably postured in my septuagenarian years in the relaxed style of Savannah, Georgia, I thought it might be time to re-read my late grandmother’s memoirs; reflect on what Milton Academy was like back in the beginning of the twentieth century; and consider what Milton meant to our family.

My grandfather graduated from Harvard College in 1885, and upon graduation taught school for a short time before the allure of higher financial rewards attracted him to enroll in Harvard Law School. After graduating and joining a law firm, it did not take long before he developed an unpleasant distaste in suing people. He then realized that the most satisfying employment for him was teaching classics. Thus began his Milton Academy career.

By the early twentieth century, grandfather Ward was happily married, enjoying an expanding family when tragedy struck. My namesake and father, Andrew H. Ward, was only two weeks old in 1907 when his mother died. Over the next five years, three little girls and their younger brother were cared for by a gray-haired, stately German lady, affectionately nicknamed Mini, who served as housekeeper, hostess, nurse, governess, seamstress and music teacher. This kindly, competent lady did a good job under the prevailing circumstances, but the pressure of grandfather’s teaching job, his many services to the town of Milton, coupled with his conscientious efforts to uphold his duties by his four children, were becoming a severe strain. Near the end of those five difficult and lonely years after his wife’s death, his own health began to suffer.

In 1912, Emily Locke, the life-long college friend of the children’s mother and frequent visitor to the household, married grandfather Ward, realizing full well that her new husband’s days were marked. Shortly thereafter, little Andy summed up the situation pretty well as he climbed into his new stepmother’s lap one day when she was receiving a caller, patting her cheek and explaining to the visitor, “This is our new little mother. We haven’t had her very long. Now I have three mothers—Mother-in-Heaven, Mini and you.”

When grandfather Ward’s illness became more pronounced, a group of Milton Academy trustees headed by P.E. Forbes and N.P. Hallowell raised a trust fund and explained that it was mainly for the future education of the children. As a crowning blessing, the trustees granted free education to the children and upgraded the 127 Centre Street house on school grounds for use until such time the children became self-supporting. The kindness and generosity of his friends was overwhelming and greatly appreciated.

Milton Academy was also very considerate with scholarships to our family’s next generation that attended this wonderful Milton institution. Accordingly, at this point in my life, the very least that I can do is fund a day school scholarship. A third of the funds have already been funded to the school, with the balance in a segregated portion of my IRA. I will manage those IRA assets over the next three years before depositing the balance with the school endowment.

I believe in an active, individualistic life where learning is a daily adventure. Hopefully, this scholarship will provide someone else with the same opportunity. Change is constant, but Milton Academy has adapted without sacrificing principles or values.

SANDY BATCHELDER ’50 – in his own words

When I write to my classmates twice a year to ask them to support Milton I have to think about why I invest time, energy and assets in an exclusive and expensive prep school when there are so many other unmet needs and worthy causes?

The answer is that I view Milton as a sort of laboratory engaged in determining the best way to educate high school students, which I consider an indispensable function of a successful free society. High school is where leadership skills are taught, where you learn how to learn, where values are instilled. College and graduate education, on the other hand, consists primarily of broadening one’s database and viewpoint or preparing for a career. Teens have to deal with rapidly changing technology, terrorism, uncertain sexual mores, cell phones and terrible music. I’m glad that I won’t have to do it over, but if I did, I would want to be a student at Milton. Robin is just what the doctor ordered to lead this diverse group – an anthropologist with a sense of humor.

The world is getting smaller every day, and today’s majority will become tomorrow’s minority. Students at Milton need to understand and be comfortable with other races, cultures, classes and religions if they are going to lead future institutions. This was not an issue way back in the 40s when I was at the school -- we were all white, all male (except on weekends), rather conformist and expected to go to Harvard. However we did have a variety of talents and viewpoints. In Wolcott House alone, we had a suspected Communist, an experienced sexual counselor, a specialist in waltzing, and a practical joker who could mimic farts under your chair by squeezing his hands together.

I also feel Milton is like extended family. This is not because my father, two younger brothers, and two of my children went there, or because I was sent to Milton as a boarder in the 5th Class in a futile effort to get me out of my parents’ hair and become a star athlete. Rather it was because I had a great time (after an initial few months of homesickness) and developed friendships with classmates and faculty that are quickly renewed at every reunion. Even though the exponential growth of the alumni/ae body (caused perhaps by an historical reluctance to offer sex education) may result in many legacy applications for admission, I understand that diversity in the largest sense is needed if kids are going to learn from kids, and therefore there may be less space for my progeny.

The Milton experience in the 1940s was incredibly different. The sexes were segregated, dating was difficult and a principal means of communicating with a chosen friend of the opposite sex was love letters sent by courier through the steam tunnel connecting Warren and Ware. The result, of course, was to think of women as forbidden fruit and put off understanding of the complexities of long term relationships until you had been married for a while. It appeared that the admissions standards emphasized athletics for boy and brains for girls. I received excellent leadership training as the captain of a hockey team with a dreadful record and no artificial ice to practice on. Diversity was non-existent and most of the class went on to Ivy League colleges. Extracurricular activities were focused on athletics, clubs and carefully monitored social events. There was some local volunteer work, but none of the commendable outreach programs of today, which send Milton students to work in soup kitchens and see poverty first hand. Personal values were taught, but there was less emphasis on the big problems of our society or the world. When I think of it, I am amazed at how much at Milton has changed over the last half century and how well it has been able to adapt without sacrificing its principles. Milton has always seemed to me more like a public school than a traditional prep school, and I am glad that it has remained open to and engaged with the Greater Boston community.

Milton is not a religious school but was able to lay the groundwork for a number of the values in which I believe most strongly.

First, I believe that those of us who have been blessed with above average skills, intelligence (i.e. a Milton education) or assets have a responsibility to help those who are less fortunate. If this means less time on the golf course and more time helping a small homeless shelter to succeed, so be it. I had a good career as a corporate lawyer at Goodwin Procter and have great respect for the firm, but what I enjoyed most was leading the local Red Cross organization through a major reorganization in the 80s to improve its effectiveness. Since retiring 8 years ago I have worked as a volunteer consultant for Executive Service Corps, helping nonprofits resolve leadership and organizational problems so that they can do a better job of carrying out their missions. ESC is the largest management consulting organization in N.E. devoted to serving nonprofits and has a terrific pool of over 200 experienced volunteer consultants who handle 80-100 consulting projects per year. I have also been able to help ESC address its own organizational problems by serving on its board and recently as board chair. Nothing is more satisfying than helping good people running a worthy charity through difficult organizational changes and I feel very good about how I am spending the time that I have left on this planet.

Second, I care about economic and social justice. The spread between the incomes of the rich and poor in this country is appalling, and I cannot understand how a CEO praised for his leadership skills can get a $10 million bonus on top of a $20 million salary while cutting health benefits of employees in order to improve profitability. Nor can I understand why we elect governments that start unjustified wars and cut taxes for rich people, then use the resulting deficit as an excuse for reducing social services for the poor. Why do we spend more money on healthcare that any other nation but cannot afford to make it available to everyone who is sick? Our political system is corrupted by money and we have a severe leadership deficit. We need a new generation of leaders who understand the moral responsibilities of a successful nation, and I suspect that a few of them might be studying at Milton today.

Third, I value a love of learning. I want to understand what motivates people and institutions, how things work, what makes a flower grow and bloom. (Michael Pollan has a theory that plants manipulate us into sowing their seeds and protecting them from drought and weeds by seducing us with the beauty of their flowers or their delicious taste.) I resist the idea that our thinking capacity will be turned over to computers. Milton teaches critical thinking, creativity and standing up for what is right and its faculty is better than ever. I can’t imagine a better environment for learning at the secondary school level.

Finally, everyone needs family and friends to share thoughts with, to confirm their quiet successes, to hold close and to tell them when their socks don’t match.

For me, these values had their roots in my family upbringing and my experiences at Milton. Parents get the first crack at you, but then the drive for independence sets in and work on values shifts to peers and teachers. I think that Milton is doing a much better job of teaching values today, and this is badly needed in a world where dishonesty is rampant. Politicians will promise anything to get elected; business leaders cook the books or hide product defects to protect shareholder values; religious leaders tell suicide bombers they will go to heaven for killing innocent people; and spouses cheat on each other and the divorce rate is astronomical. Has Diogenes given up the search and gone home to watch Desperate Housewives? The Milton motto is beginning to sound pretty relevant.

For all the reasons above Milton is a great long term investment, deserving not only of my time and energy but also a portion of my assets. Instead of a measly 5-9% return in very uncertain markets you can invest in an institution producing some of tomorrow’s leaders who will have a major role in straightening out the world or at least a small part of it. Even better, you can kill two birds by purchasing a charitable annuity that pays you and your spouse 7-8% (if you are old enough) guaranteed and leaves a substantial remainder to Milton for continuation of its good work. I have found it easy to write legacies into my will, but Milton may have to wait a while if yoga and tennis keep me going as long as I hope. My family and I have benefited greatly from Milton and we would like to ensure that others with the requisite potential (not just more Batchelders) can have the same opportunity.