Mary Medley is Leaving Catlin After 38 Years

by Emma Latendresse

Mary Medley in the Catlin Gabel caretaker’s house with husband and daughter.

Mary Medley knows where the bodies are buried on the Catlin Gabel School (CGS) campus. Within minutes of our interview out on the benches in front of the Creative Arts Center, I could have given you a list: dogs Columbine and Medea in the woods by the track, cats Willy, Casey, and Barnes on the hill overlooking the track, and even her two children’s placentas in the apple orchard. Like the bodies in the ground, Mary has been nourishing and supporting the foundation of CGS for 38 years.

Mary and her husband Robert first came to CGS in July 1981, while both were working in PPS, Mary in the alternative program known as MLC Metropolitan Learning Center, and Robert as a sub for multiple schools. Robert had a student whose father was the theater director at a unique independent school called CGS. The theater director had recently lost an employee who along with being the woodshop teacher also did theater tech, and Robert applied to fill the position. The school explained that there was no paid position available in theater, but they said he could be the caretaker, live on campus, & work in the theater part time.The caretaker’s house was where the Modern Language building now sits, and in the year 1981, the Robert accepted the positions and the couple began working and living on the CGS campus.

Click here to listen to Mary’s oral history on what Catlin looked like 38 years ago.

The initial plan for the Medleys was to stay two maybe three years at CGS before their larger plan was initiated. “Like a whole lot of people at that time, we were thinking about banding together with some of our friends and forming a school,” Mary said. After moving onto the campus and being able to closely observe all aspects of the school, including counting every door as they locked up at night, the Medleys decided to stay.

“We found the sort of school that we wanted to form anyway,” Mary said.

The school stood for the same values that were close to Mary’s philosophy on what a school should be.“Kids were the most important thing,” she said. She also appreciated that teachers taught “the whole person as opposed to just a subject.”

And so, as Mary said, “we just kept hanging around.” The Medleys lived in the caretaker’s house for seven years and when  their younger daughter turned old enough for kindergarten, they decided that the school, which they knew so well from living on campus, was definitely something they wanted for their kids, once they had them.

Mary’s two daughters, now in their 30s, grew up on campus.  At one and a half, her older daughter fell off the long slide of the old playground. In preschool her youngest  fell asleep after school and no one could find her. A search party was organized and Mary was asked where her daughter might go. Her answer? “Anywhere, she would go anyplace on this campus she knew it so well.” Mary later found the daughter sleeping in the Beehive.

Mary’s two daughters playing in the upper school quad.

As both daughters grew up, they were heavily involved in the theater department alongside their dad and Mary, who at the time did much of the costuming, stage managing, makeup, and front of house organizing. Mary’s older daughter did a lot of costuming and her younger daughter did some makeup work. There was one show Mary remembers with a tower in the center of the stage. “I wonder if kids would feel as confident running around on it if they saw it screwed together by a 3rd grader” Mary used to joke.

Mary keeps a list of the number of headmasters of all divisions since she’s arrived: Seven heads of school, six beginning school heads, four lower school heads, nine middle school heads, nine upper school heads. In these 38 years Mary has had many jobs. Along with serving as resident caretakers, Mary has worked in the middle school, the business office (twice), Toad Hall, and facilities rental program. Now Mary works in the upper school office sending out the daily bulletin, overseeing all official forms, answering questions for students and teachers, and providing candy. In her five plus official and unofficial positions at CGS, Mary observed gradual change over the community of students and teachers. When she started “money [money at CGS was very tight, [now] there’s less of a need to be thrifty, less of a sense of making do- which is good and bad.” She says students today are more cautious,  “There was some pretty radically daredevil kids,” Mary remembers with a smile.

The education that the school provides is a source of pride for Mary as she sees its effect on her daughters, other students, faculty, and members of the community. The school's philosophy of creating lifelong learners is something that deeply resonates with a woman who chose to join to the school 38 years ago instead of forming her own. Mary cites the early adoption of technology as one of the school’s wise decisions. CGS alumni were ready for the changing workforce and comfortable in areas that others struggled. “It put our kids ahead,” Mary said.

The kind of “magic” that is being instilled here hasn’t changed, but Mary notes an increase in consumer attitude toward CGS education. CGS parents have gone from the attitude of: “Here are my children; do your magic” to “Let me tell you what magic I want done,” and “How are you doing the magic?” The higher price tag of the school played into the consumer attitude that Mary has observed.

Next year, if you are missing the quotes in the daily bulletin that Mary sends out, here is a quote of her own when asked for one thing she wants to say to the CGS community on her departure.

“Keep learning. I know that sounds sort of trite but one of the best things about a CGS education is that openness to new ideas.”