Meet Our Donors - Skippy and Vic

Grace F., known to friends and family as Skippy, is a petite woman with a charming smile and penetrating gaze enlivened by a mischievous twinkle. She is a woman of strong religious faith and expressions of that faith infuse her speech. Her lively spirit has changed little since her days as an eighth grade student in 1929. Though she now lives far from the School, in Lake San Marcos, California, Greene Street Friends remains close to her heart. 

Skippy grew up on Rittenhouse Street, near Awbury Arboretum. Possie Delp Atkinson’35 lived down the street. Skippy’s mother was a businesswoman with an office at Broad and Race. Her mother first enrolled Skippy at Friends’ Central School (then at 15th and Race) because she worked downtown but later sent her to Greene Street which was closer to home. “This had been my mother’s dream for a long time….She was a strong, wonderful woman.”

Most notable about Skippy’s Greene Street education was the “solid, warm, nurturing foundation.” Her teachers all had high expectations but also had widely varying personalities and teaching styles. Some made definite impressions. “I remember Miss Davidson, the penmanship teacher. I remember her hand touching mine, showing me how to hold the pen.” Skippy’s precise writing still displays the straightness of line and even penmanship that she learned under Miss Davidson and Skippy still writes with the same fountain pen she used as a student. Miss Chandler in English was always encouraging. English class included a great deal of memorization and reciting – Psalms, Bible verses and poetry. Miss Tyler was the music teacher. Music was taught in the gym (the basement of the Lower School) and later in the one-room building that now houses Kathie Bowes’ Pre-K. 

The Principal, Miss Oakford, provided a warm and nurturing presence. “She was such a love,” Skippy recalls. “She was always welcoming. Her office was on the right [of the Lower School building].” In the years since graduation, Skippy has developed an even deeper appreciation for what she learned here. “Many things you learn by osmosis,” she notes. “You don’t even realize it has anything to do with your education until years later.”

Boys were in short supply. Skippy remembers only two. One of them, Sam Wilson, left after fourth or fifth grade. Greene Street had no official school policy against boys, but the pull of nearby boys’ schools, like Germantown Academy (then located at Greene and School House Lane) and William Penn Charter, affected enrollment.

Just as it does today, the playground saw a lot of use. The Giant Stride, a piece of playground equipment given by Thomas Shoemaker, was a favorite source of entertainment. It stood across from the horse sheds on what is now called the upper playground. It had a tall pole with long chains that you could hang from. For May Day, the pole and chains were decorated and interwoven. The horse sheds were filled with bars, rings and sliding boards. “We did a lot of climbing,” Skippy recalls. The area behind the Meetinghouse (the lower playground) was covered in grass and used for field hockey. Softball was played in front of the Meetinghouse, where football and soccer are played now.

Mr. Shoemaker, a member of Green Street meeting and a longtime benefactor of the School, would drop by frequently and hand out Wilbur buds, kiss-shaped chocolates. His visits were always popular with the students!

“I remember when we all graduated we all had different parties. My mother and Margie Rowland’s mother took the whole class on a barge trip in New Hope. My mother was a very innovative, very giving person.” 

Skippy went to the Stevens School for a year and then went on to Cheltenham High School. After graduating from Cheltenham High School, she took college courses. She met her future husband, a Marine Corps Officer, at a dance during World War II. Victor saw her across the room and said to a friend, “See that girl? I’m going to marry her.” The couple has been married for more than 62 years. “I’m a keeper,” Vic says cheerfully.

Skippy divides her married life into active duty and non-active duty years. Vic was stationed several times out in California and fell in love with it. They finally settled there in 1958. They have two children, a daughter in Alabama whose son attends nearby California Polytechnic, and a daughter in San Diego. She has another grandson who attends Auburn University in Alabama.

“I have the opportunity to help someone else, to provide for the people who need it”
Skippy and Vic keep a very active schedule. They are docents at the Rancho Buena Vista Adobe, one of the oldest continually inhabited Adobes. They are also active in their church. She and Vic enjoy traveling and participating in Elderhostels.

Skippy’s desire to support Greene Street with a planned gift is a way of showing thanks for her mother’s decision to send her here. Skippy has included the School in her will “because of what it meant to me in my life – it is part of my life, part of my background, my foundation.” As a former teacher herself, Skippy understands what it takes to provide a strong foundation for children and is pleased to be able to help provide that for others. “I have the opportunity to help someone else, to provide for the people who need it….The thing I like most is that the school’s raison d’être is still there. The School is reaching out to each person to be the best that he or she can be, helping more people find something in themselves that they didn’t know was there. I’m proud to have been there.”