Correspondence, 1949 - 1979

The “Thank-You” letters for donations to the Trade Store, a form letter mailed regularly to donors from 1949-through 1957, are the earliest letters in this sub-series, and there is no further surviving correspondence until the Memos and Announcements, which began in 1963. While the correspondence files are not a detailed source of information on any one subject, they will acquaint the researcher with a number of subjects. The Board of Trustees and correspondence and “Letters of Support” are two of the small number of files in the entire collection which supply information about the series of budget cutbacks and administrative decisions beginning in the early 1970s and culminating in the closing of the school in 1978. The memos and announcements, primarily from directors to faculty, staff, and students, 1963-1978, supplement materials reflecting staff policies and attitudes, and changes in these over the years.

The largest of correspondence files, the General Correspondence, 1964-79, is composed primarily of the routine correspondence of three directors, William Downey, Paul Alderink, and Roger Hommes. These routine files provide insight into the daily operation of the organization and the contacts that the director made outside the school; and of course, their correspondence facilitates an understanding of these three administrators.