A Look Back: Wartime Changes at Governor Dummer Academy

Every February, the Academy celebrates Founders Week with history mysteries served up by Govs Archivist and History Teacher Sharon Slater P'16,'20,'24 in anticipation of March 1, the anniversary of the Dummer School's Opening Day in 1763. 

Ms. Slater shared one question that sparked curiosity about a remarkable moment in our school's long history:
During World War II, Headmaster Eames trained students in a specific emergency response skill to assume roles typically held by men who had departed to serve in the U.S. military. What skill were the boys trained to perform?

Answer:
The US declaration of war against the Axis powers in 1941 immediately changed the lives of many Americans, including those at Governor Dummer Academy. Rationing, the rise of wartime industries, and a dwindling supply of manpower redefined daily life for everyone. 

Ted Eames, who was headmaster at that time, entrusted students with significant responsibilities. During World War II, he took a bold step by acquiring an old fire pumper for the school and training students in firefighting techniques. He informed the town of Newbury of this initiative, and from that point forward, students and faculty assumed the critical task of extinguishing fires—both on campus, where they were an unfortunately frequent occurrence, and in the surrounding community. 

Wartime Changes at Governor Dummer Academy

Headmaster Eames made other decisive changes to help GDA adapt to the extraordinary circumstances brought about by the war. In an article from the 1942 yearbook, he explained some of the changes that had taken place during that school year. Some adjustments to wartime life were minor, including removing sugar bowls from the dining hall due to wartime rationing. Air raid drills run by faculty member Ben Stone also became a regular occurrence on campus.

Other changes were more significant, such as the departure of faculty to serve in the military, the elimination of sports such as tennis because of the ban on chartered bus trips, and Eames' desire to promote more "rugged" sports. Eames also instituted curricular changes that were deemed more useful for students who would leave the Academy to pursue either military service or careers in wartime industries, adding coursework such as meteorology, radio communications, and machine shop. It was, however, Eames' hope that young men would delay participation in the full-time workforce or the military until after completing college, or at least high school.  

Student Work Program

Eames' "do-it-yourself" attitude helped sustain the school through these challenging years. Building on a program launched during the Great Depression, he expanded the use of student workers to fill positions once held by adults who were now part of the war effort, making participation in the student work program mandatory for all. He devised a system where students took on essential tasks—morning chores before classes and afternoon duties in place of athletics once a week. These included indoor jobs like working in the dining hall, cleaning bathrooms, and emptying trash. Outdoor work included chopping and hauling wood for campus buildings, mowing lawns, shoveling snow, and harvesting hay from the surrounding salt marsh. Beyond necessity, Eames aimed to instill a strong work ethic in the students, preparing them for military service or future endeavors beyond the academy.

Eames' Wartime Letters

Beginning in December of 1942, Eames made a promise. Having realized how many alumni were serving in the military overseas, he vowed to write monthly letters to these alumni, informing them of events on campus and sharing news received from other alumni in the military. Eames kept his word, writing letters each month. Alumni were enthusiastic about the monthly correspondence, writing Eames to convey their own wartime experiences for him to pass along to former classmates. The Archives are home to this remarkable and often poignant collection of letters, including Eames' letter in response to the US bombing of Hiroshima in 1945 and another immediately following the Japanese surrender. In this letter, Eames reveals some of the relief many Americans experienced upon hearing this news—friends ringing bells and honking horns to show their approval of the joyous news. But he also listed the many Governor Dummer boys lost to the war.

This collection offers a glimpse into the WWII-related materials preserved in the Academy Archives, reflecting a community's ingenuity, determination, and unity while navigating extraordinarily difficult times. 

Passages, content, and research for this article were excerpted from Archives Manager Sharon Slater, who also teaches history at Governor's.