Earlier this year in Tennessee, we took the boys back to Sewanee, University of the South, which I first visited for a Polk family reunion. We have a connection to the school in that a relative, Bishop Leonidas Polk (on the non-Jewish side of my family, obv) helped found it, beginning when he wrote to other Southern bishops on July 1, 1856 asking for their support in creating a school that would become “our common property, under our joint control, of a clear and distinctly recognized church character, upon a scale of such breadth and comprehensiveness, as shall be equal in the liberality of its provisions for intellectual cultivation to those of the highest class at home or abroad.”
The boys are still a little young to grasp the big idea of ancestors but of course I still get a big kick out of showing them his image in stained glass there at All Saints’ Chapel:
“That’s one of your PawPaws” sounds easier than “boys, meet your 5th cousin 4 times removed”:
The stained glass windows throughout are amazing but one thing that makes the space so interesting = the atypical subjects gracing the chapel:
Pascal:
Sir Isaac Newton:
Bach:
William Crawford Gorgas:
Shakespeare:
Michelangelo:
Cervantes:
(above and below — the McClurg Dining Hall. Um, my college dining hall wasn’t this pretty!)
The school also does ‘Summer in Sewanee‘ while the students are away, and they host all kinds of academic, artistic, and sporting camps for adults and children. I’m thinking that when both boys are old enough, we may consider spending a week up there for them to attend the All Sports day camp.
…visitors of all ages come to the Mountain to relax, to explore our 13,000 acres of trails, lakes, and forests, and to take advantage of the many opportunities offered from late May to mid-August.
Sports camps bring athletes of all ages to the Mountain while musicians rehearse on green lawns beneath spreading trees. Writers and poets come to practice their craft and learn from some of the finest writers in the world. And a number of academic programs offer a wide range of educational opportunities.