Sherry Downes arrived at Milton in 1955 and immediately felt at home. With the last polio epidemic raging in Boston, she and her fellow boarders were required to stay on campus. It was that time at Hathaway House where she made long-lasting relationships. “We were all remarkably alike,” she says. “We hit it off immediately, sharing inside jokes and common interests.” Although the Girls’ School was completely separate from the Boys’ School, Sherry remembers crossing Centre Street for special events. It was at a theater production in March of 1958 that she met a boy, going home that night to write in her diary that he gave her a “nice, warm feeling.” That boy was James Bland, who would become her husband and the father of our current headmaster. Read more.
