Guide
Lawrence (Larry) Melander oral history
Larry Melander came to Perkins in 1966 and worked as a houseparent and teacher before becoming the Supervisor of the Lower School in 1974. After his retirement in 2006, Melander and his wife, Sue, returned to Perkins to volunteer in the Perkins Archives.
Biographical information
Lawrence (Larry) Melander came to Perkins School for the Blind in 1966 after his graduation from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. Melander was inspired to work at Perkins following a presentation about the school by the Department of Teacher Training head, William Heisler. He began his 40 year career at Perkins as a houseparent in Potter Cottage and a teacher in the Lower School. In 1972, he earned his C.A.E.S. degree in Special Education Administration at Boston College. He was appointed the Lower School Supervisor in 1974, a position in which he remained until his retirement in 2006. Even in retirement, however, Melander remained involved with Perkins and returned to volunteer in the Perkins Archives with his wife, Sue in 2012. Together, the Melanders transcribed numerous volumes of the Nella Braddy Henney collection and the Laura Bridgman collection. They are photographed above in the Howe Museum in 2016.
Related resources
Resources listed include materials on the Internet Archive website which relies on OCR to make resources accessible. We acknowledge that OCR is prone to errors, and cannot recognize graphics or handwritten text, thus creating barriers to these materials. If these materials aren’t accessible in part or in whole, to a user because of a disability, please contact [email protected] to request an accessible version.
- “Meet Lawrence J. Melander….” The Lantern, June 1978, p. Cover-1. Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA. Available on the Internet Archive.
- The 1966-1967 Teacher Training Classes.” The Lantern, March 1967, p. 4-5. Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA. Available on the Internet Archive.
- “‘Total Living’ on Cape Cod.” The Lantern, June 1971. Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown MA. Available on the Internet Archive.
- “Lawrence J. Melander.” The Lantern, December 1978. p. 8. Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown MA. Available on the Internet Archive.
Notice and permissions
This interview is an interview conducted for the Perkins School for the Blind, conducted on September 9, 2024, by Susanna Coit. The edited and redacted transcript of this interview is made available to protect privacy.
This oral history transcript may be quoted if cited. A preferred citation is provided. The interview may not be published in full except with the permission of the Perkins School for the Blind. For permission please contact [email protected].
Preferred citation
Melander, Lawrence. “Lawrence (Larry) Melander oral history interview conducted by Susanna Coit,” 2024-09-09, Perkins Archives Oral History Project, AG176-2024-17, Perkins School for the Blind Archives.
Audio recording
Transcript (redacted and edited to protect privacy)
Note: The edited and redacted transcript of this interview is made available to protect privacy.
Susanna Coit (Coit): OK, today is September 9, 2024. This is Susanna Coit. I’m here with Larry Melander. We’re conducting this interview virtually on Google Meet from Massachusetts. Larry, are you OK with me recording this conversation?
Larry Melander (Melander): Yes, absolutely.
Coit: OK, great. So to get started, what years were you at Perkins?
Melander: Well, I came to Perkins the first time in 1967 [1966] and retired in 2006.
Coit: So that’s–
Melander: 40 years.
Coit: All right. That’s what was my next question. And how did you come to work at Perkins? What brought you to Perkins?
Melander: Discovering it out of the blue. Yes, well, first, I went to college in Lewiston, Maine, at Bates College. And I majored in speech communications, English, and education. So in their education courses every year, it was a tradition, I guess, for different people to come and talk about their programs and so forth.
And in the year that I was a senior, Bill Heisler– who was just one of the great people in my life– Bill Heisler came from Perkins, showed a film on the programs at Perkins, probably one of the ones that you have in the archives, I assume, and I became quite interested in it.
And the reason I did is because my great-aunt was blind. She lost her vision in 1940. And I grew up with her, and she was just a great lady. And she did all kinds of things on her own that I, as a little kid, was marveled at. So I said, this is really good.
So I got to know a little bit more with talking books and the rest of it from Aunt Marie. So when that opportunity came that they said they actually had a place at Perkins that you could go to work on your master’s degree, I said, well, let me apply.
And I did apply, and I did get in, and I said, oh, boy. It was either that or I had some teaching possibilities. But this one seemed awfully good because I got the chance to go to not Boston, but near Boston and all of that. So it was a great opportunity.
I think it was Chapter 750 [Chapter 766] or something, a federal government grant, that the Perkins– you know this, but I’ll just put it out that Perkins’ affiliation with universities, I guess, started with Harvard in, like, 1920 and–
Coit: Yep.
Melander: –stayed there for a while and then transferred over to BU [Boston University]. And BU had it for a while. And in the year that I came, BC [Boston College] inherited it. And the proviso was that they provide education for teachers of the handicapped, and it had to result in a master’s degree.
The other ones were– BU had, like, four courses you could take, so it was on their way. This is the full-blown thing that we got to take advantage of. And it was really terrific.
We paid all our tuition, and we had $100 of spending money every month. So– back then, $100 went a little further. So that was really pretty neat.
[Additional information from Larry Melander: All of our tuition was paid for.]
Coit: I would imagine.
Melander: So that’s how I got started. Got interested in Perkins, and then I showed up, and then, of course, there’s the first-year story and all that. We can talk about that a little bit, too.
Coit: Well, so when Bill Heisler went to Bates, he came to talk about the Teacher Training program. Was that what he was–
Melander: Yes.
Coit: –promoting?
Melander: Yeah, he talked about the opportunities, and this is what you would do if you came, and you could work and get your master’s degree from BC [Boston College], which was only about a 20 minute ride from Perkins. So that was– all seemed awfully good, and that’s how we got started.
He sold the whole thing to us. I was the only one in my class that took advantage of it, to even apply, that I know of. But Bates used to be quite a conduit to Perkins. One of my student teaching advisors was a Bates graduate, and there were about four other Bates graduates that were on the Perkins staff. So I think they had a good record and took a chance on me I guess.
Coit: And so what was your first job at Perkins that you had?
Melander: Well, technically, my first job was as part of the first year as a student. When we were at BC, we stayed at Perkins. We lived in the dorms. I was in Potter Cottage. That was the elementary program for the older boys.
And I worked as an Assistant Houseparent. And I got paid a minimum amount, and I got board and room for that. So that was another really good deal.
So I lived on campus, actually, for two years, one as the Assistant Houseparent, and then the following year as the Houseparent. So that was– and a Houseparent is different from the Housemothers that we have in the residence. They’re the ones that really ran the show.
We were supplementary people. We’d work evenings, get the kids up in the morning, do those kinds of jobs, which I can talk to you a little bit about. That was kind of fun.
Coit: Yeah, tell me more about that.
Melander: Well– [clears throat]– excuse me. The way it worked is in the morning, we would– I think the alarm was 6:30 or something like that, and the kids would all get up and start to get ready to go down to breakfast. Well, I was very lucky because I had the older kids. And the population– we can talk about that a little bit. They were pretty independent. I had 14– I think it was 14 or 15 boys on that– residential students on my second floor.
So I would kind of supervise their getting up. They did most of it on their own, but I’d just check them out before they went down for breakfast. And that’s how we started the school day.
And then, after suppertime, they’d have reading times. Very often, we were the ones that would read right after supper for 15 minutes, half an hour. And then I would work some weekends. And so it was kind of a catch-all thing to help the Houseparents who really work full-time. Talk about full-time.
So, yeah, that’s the kinds of “jobs” in quotes that we would do. And you get to know the kids that way, which was a lot of fun.
Coit: And so you said– you talked a little about the population in Potter. Do you want to– can you say more about that?
Melander: Yes, well, first of all, the Lower School was really huge at the time. I think there was, like, 120 students, roughly 50/50 boys and girls, a few more boys than girls, as I remember. But in the cottages, most of– many, many were day students.
But we had quite a few residential kids, too. And the residential ones are mostly Monday to Friday. And we had just a handful of kids, maybe 10 or so at the most, that would stay weekends because they lived that far away.
So anyway, when I came to Perkins, it was kind of on the cusp of things. We were really a traditional prep school for the visually handicapped. Perkins had everything that you could have in a public school modified. If it’s a football game, you had modified rules. And if you had something else, it was modified to make it fun for the kids but still replicate the sport or the activity.
At any rate, they were quite, I think– well, a class that graduated from Perkins had about maybe 20, average or 20 students. And I just– I’m guessing, but I don’t think it’s too far off. 15 of those 20 would go on to higher education of some sort.
It might be community college or something. But some of them went to really standard colleges that you would recognize. So that population shifted. And the other product of that Title 750 [Chapter 766] that I was talking about is that a lot of additional people were being hired– I mean, trained – and they were able to be hired in public schools in Massachusetts, and the government, too. I think the US government were really pushing to get the kids back into their public schools. So for some of the handicapping conditions, it was not as hard as it was for the visually handicapped, because– who knew braille and who were they able to– whatever. And so they had visiting teachers, itinerant teachers that would go in and whatever.
So that was the beginning of the higher-functioning college-bound students coming to Perkins. And– although a lot of times, even now they come to Perkins, I think, in the high school ages because there’s just some things you can’t get in a public school.
I remember Ben Smith, who was our fourth or fifth director, was blind himself, and he said that he felt that any blind child, student, whatever, should at least spent a couple of years at Perkins, no matter wherever they functioned, because there were so many things– as you probably know, if you go to a residential college, you learn as much in the dorms as you learn in the classes, so–
Coit: Sure.
Melander: And I’ve always agreed with him with that. I think it would be great, even– and we were able to do that with summer school, by the way. We’ve got a number of– when I was there, we had a number of students come in as day students in the summer. So that helped a lot, too.
And they always loved it because we had activities that were set for them. And a lot of the kids would come in and say, oh, I just had to stand on the side in my other school. They wouldn’t let me play, because I’d get injured.
And here they got involved, no matter what, even if it was a diminished– that’s not a good word to use either– slightly altered way of rules on games and things.
Coit: OK, so you started as Assistant Houseparent, became a Houseparent, and then what other positions did you have?
Melander: I lived on for the first two years. And the first one was very active as being a student at BC. So I got my master’s degree at the end of that year. And then I applied and got a job at Perkins.
So I was a teacher the second year, even though I lived on, but I didn’t have the same kind of obligations that I had had before. But, yeah, no, I was a teacher the second year there.
Coit: OK.
Melander: So that was my first year of teaching, and I was actually in the Lower School as well. I taught what you would say is the equivalent of fourth grade to sixth grade, although we were getting to be non-graded then. Non-graded means that different kids had different strengths. So you might be teaching them third-grade reading because it included braille and sixth grade in science or social studies. So it became ungraded at some point.
Coit: And what years did you do that?
Melander: Well, I did that for my first five years at Perkins. The third year is when Sue and I got married and we had an apartment in Acton. So I became a day traveler–
Coit: Yep.
Melander: –as a teacher. And from there, then I continued for a second master’s degree– they call it a CAES degree, which is a second. But this was on special ed administration. And my first one was on education of the visually handicapped or multihandicapped.
So then, at that point, Cynthia Essex, who was my supervisor– we were called Program Supervisors. So Cynthia was the program supervisor, and I was one of the teachers. But I had gotten my second degree, second master’s, or what do you call it– it’s more than that. It’s a certificate.
Anyway, I applied for the job for Lower School Supervisor because Cynthia had now identified a number of the Perkins population that were multihandicapped, and we were trying to move from just the highest-level kids to a more general group.
There’s still a number of kids that did go on after, but the graduation rate may produce 5 or 10 college grads. That’s from the high school. So you can see how things were leading more to them being back in the public schools.
So she created a whole new program called Special Program. And they were in a combination of Lower School and Upper School. But then that’s when I became the Program Supervisor for the lower school, in other words, in charge of the whole academic program for the Lower School elementary-age kids.
Coit: Were you still teaching in that position or was it just administrative?
Melander: No, I–
Coit: Not “just” administrative.
Melander: That’s right, yeah, just– no, I left teaching then. And that was my full-time job, then, as the Program Supervisor. And that was kind of a full thing because it’s more than just an elementary principal, because we’re a residential school. So you had to be involved in the residential part of it as well, and outreach for kids that would be coming in.
And along with all of this came the beginnings of Perkins’ summer school. A lot of towns really wanted their kids to have a full year of program because they didn’t have anything to do in the summer. So we had a summer program that I was the first supervisor for that, even as a teacher.
But that allowed the kids– how long was it, a six-week program, I think? It was a six-week program, anyway, and we just continued and reinforced what the kids had already learned, whose towns would fund the summer program.
And we got other kids from the regular public schools. So that was kind of a fun adventure to do.
Coit: So it was academic summer school.
Melander: Yeah, academic, certainly, but I think a little more of a flavor of recreation and fun and games and field trips and things. We wanted to have a summer program that wasn’t a drudge–
Coit: Well, that’s good.
Melander: –for the kids and the staff, I mean, the staff, they’re out straight the whole year. So in other words, to lure them into– because that was optional to apply for summer school, and we were able to fill positions. But that wasn’t easy.
Coit: So you talked about the sort of pushing inclusion and incorporating students into public schools. I’m wondering, what do you think were some of the most important changes at Perkins? So the philosophy, the programs, facilities, anything like that?
Melander: That for sure, and it was coming to grips with the older staff– and me, too. You had the same kind of feeling that we were doing so well to get kids having, in quotes, a “normal” school life that you kind of hated to see it change. And so you really had to spend more and more time with kids with more impairments.
At that point, most of the students, while they might have some physical disabilities or whatever, but very often, the visually handicapped kids had additional impairments, sometimes so much so that being blind wasn’t the most challenging thing. It could be communication or that they would be severely physically impaired. So you had to work with their wheelchairs.
Wheelchairs started to come in and problems getting access to second-floor classrooms. We couldn’t do that. So we had to– so a lot of things became more complicated in the ’70s. And I would say by the time we got to late ’70s and ’80s, we were accommodating pretty well with a whole group of different population kids– more of a challenge, but also more rewards when they succeeded, too. It was great to see that happen.
So that was a big change. I would say the early ’70s up to ’75 or whatever were quite dramatic changes because all of those teachers now were serving in the public school, and they could do a better job of taking care of their needs in classes in the public schools. I still will argue, though, that spending time in Perkins wouldn’t hurt anybody.
Coit: And what do you– so was there anything else that you felt like changed that was remarkable to you?
Melander: Yeah. Well, we ended up– I was trying to think here what– mostly, when I started teaching, it was the teacher– and in my first class, I think I had eight kids. In a subsequent class, I had 10 kids. You just couldn’t– there wasn’t room after that, because they had additional needs.
And we needed Program Aides. We hadn’t had Program Aides. But you need them. If you’re going to work on toileting, they could be working with their student for a half an hour just to complete the toileting process and teaching them how to do that and other things. And you had to have people transporting. So there was a larger number of staff and paraprofessional staff and all. So that was a big change as well. We tried to be still as, quote, “normal” as we had been in the past. But that was a tough time to make a change.
Coit: And who have been some of the most memorable staff that you encountered while you were at Perkins?
Melander: Susanna, you don’t have enough time. [Laughter] I think I worked with some pretty incredible, wonderful people. I did jot down a few names so that I wouldn’t not bring them up.
One that comes to mind quickly, and not first and foremost, but Eleanor Thayer. Eleanor Thayer was our teacher. And she graduated from Mount Holyoke– or Smith– Smith is right. And she was our music teacher. And she was the historian for the school. She used to run the alumni group, where everybody was and what they were doing and all of that thing, something that Kevin Hartigan was doing there for a number of years, and Bill Heisler before that.
She was really terrific. I learned so much about Perkins’ history and some of the things they did, stories that were really, really cute. She was one of the three ladies that you had talked about. The other one was Dorothy Ingersoll, and Rhoda Pill was the third that I interviewed for those two sessions.
And just a quickie– I’ll never forget. Dorothy Ingersoll, she was blind, and she was a student at Perkins as well. And she said way back in the 1920s or something, across from Perkins was the quarantine area for animals coming into the country [inaudible] people didn’t know that much. But they had all these quarantined animals.
Well, I guess one day a cow or a bull escaped from them and came on to Perkins’ campus. And they rang the– everybody ran. She said, we ran in the bushes, and we were in there terrified. And somebody came and got the critter and brought him back.
But those are the kinds of stories that she would tell. Or when the kids would shower, she said the most valuable people to have were the partially sighted kids because they could work as lookouts. And I guess going all the way back to the very first whatever with Dr. Howe, they always said that the best kind of showers that you’d take were cold showers.
Coit: Yep.
Melander: So they’d go in and they’d have the cold showers. And she said it was soapstone on the edges. And, of course, that gets frozen. And she said the best one– what we would do is we’d just stick our hands in there. None of the kids wanted to go in. She’s– none of us girls wanted to even step in. So the child with some vision said, OK, she’s coming. The Houseparent’s coming. And they would scout. So it was kind of just those funny stories about normalcy in the school.
Coit: Yeah, and the students petitioned to have that– to get Dr. Howe to stop requiring cold showers.
Melander: Yeah. Can you imagine the– he thought that was healthy. That was back at the time of different religious viewpoints and different social things– phrenology and all that.
Coit: Yes.
Melander: So, yeah, no, that was for sure. OK, you were talking about people.
Coit: Yes. Who else is on your list?
Melander: Oh, well, of course Bill Heisler, because I had him through all the years. And then, afterwards, we would work together because we had to place students coming from other colleges as well. And he was always there.
And, of course, Cynthia Essex was my first supervisor, and she had a great long time at Perkins. Of course, the directors, you get to know each of them a little bit more as you move up the line or whatever. Dr. Waterhouse was awfully good.
I should have told you this. In my second year, yeah– I was a teacher then. My second year at Perkins, the senior class asked if I would be one of their advisors. Now, I’m in the elementary school, but I did student teaching in two sessions up there, so they knew me.
And they wanted to see if I could be a senior– I mean, a staff advisor. And I said, sure. And I worked with them. And then the other ones were teachers as well.
But I– let me see if I’m saying this correctly. Yeah, I am– for the year. As one of the two, three advisors– I guess there were three of us– we had the senior trip. And the senior trip was pretty impressive, I think, for 1968.
We would go to Washington, DC. We had a stopover for one night in New York City. We’re right down in the city. [Laughter] And here’s three or four staff members and 20 seniors. But–
Coit: Oh, boy.
Melander: Yeah, that was really something, including one guy– I can’t think of his name. But anyway, when we got to Washington, DC, we went to the Washington Memorial. And we were all saying, we’ll all climb it. We’ll climb the Washington Memorial.
Well, one of them– darn, I’m going to try to remember. He was on crutches– forearm crutches, too. He made the whole trip all the way up.
Coit: Wow.
Melander: The whole class was up at the top to greet him. And all of the other people were all applauding that he made it all the way up. Yeah. In fact, I walked with him for a good portion of it. He did it. Then we could ride down on the elevator. But that was just a side story for you, Susanna.
Coit: It’s a good one.
Melander: We were there for, like, four days, I think was the whole trip. And that was a good one. So where was I before I–
Coit: Dr. Waterhouse.
Melander: Yeah, Dr. Waterhouse was– he was a very imposing guy, really nice. He was English. He was originally from England. And he, I guess, ran the Howe Press for a while and then was chosen as the director following Dr. Farrell.
And, yeah, he was good. He was very much of a support system except one issue. Now, I don’t want to take too long, but in our second year of teaching, they had a new program for salary increase. Now, my starting salary was $5,700, $5,700 a year. Not bad, huh?
That was where we started. And so, at any rate, they had this new something-something plan that the trustees had come up with so that everybody– I forgot what, it would jump a salary step for the following year.
But when you were a first-year teacher, you’d go into the second year. Well, that would be the same way as us on the second year. So in other words, if you worked there for a year on a teacher salary scale, you obviously go up. Well, we did. But they did, too, as an entry salary.
So there was about six of us that were hired at Perkins from my class. And we kind of hemmed and hawed. And finally I said, well, let’s write a letter. And so I wrote the letter, signed it first, the John Hancock deal. And guess who gets to sign it first?
And we send it in, noting that we were going to be staying where we are. No, the new people were going to go to the second step. That’s what it was.
So here we are, worked the whole year. We wouldn’t be going up, but they would be. That’s what the whole thing is.
So anyway, we wrote this, I thought, thoughtful letter, and all six of us signed, and we sent it. And, of course, it was the last week of school, and we’re all shaking like, you know, if you don’t like it, go somewhere else kind of thing.
And he wrote a letter back to us and he said, thank you for this very thoughtful letter regarding salaries and so forth. That’s a very difficult topic or whatever. I have the letter somewhere in my archives, I think.
But he said, so we have determined that you will each go into that second step. And so, number one, it was total relief we didn’t get fired. And the second one was, doggone it, he didn’t get the idea. We’re second– we’re not the same as the first-year– first people coming.
Anyway, we let it go at that for sure. You don’t want to go, yeah, but you didn’t get my– no, we didn’t.
Coit: Yeah.
Melander: But he was always good, and he was a very proper Englishman. But you really felt that he was on top of things for sure. I always liked Dr. Waterhouse. And then he was followed by Ben Smith and Chuck Woodcock and so forth. But, yeah, then other people– Mary McDonagh was just wonderful.
She was a Head of the Cottages for both Deafblind and Lower School. And she had loads of years of experience. She was an Irish lady, so she always had an Irish brogue and whatever, but just well loved by her, pretty straight-laced but pretty on target and very supportive.
And, of course, Kevin Lessard and Steve Rothstein, the people that I worked with, too– somebody else I should mention– and we’ll be talking about that in a little bit about working with parents– is our social worker. Her name was Shrim Ranjangam.
Now, Shrim was from India. Her father, I guess, was a noted judge in India and whatever. And she married and went through to Africa. And she and her husband worked there, and then they came to the US and worked at Fernald, at Fernald.
And at some point, we lost our social worker. We were adding one or whatever. And Spencer Moore, Dr. Moore, was head of clinical services at the time. He said, I have a lady that I think you will like, and her name is Shrim Ranjangam.
And I thought, OK. And he said, she’s worked with me when I worked at Fernald, and I think you’ll like her. So I said, OK. And I’m thinking to myself, oh, she’s got heavy Indian accent and all the rest of a dialect. So this isn’t going to work out well.
I interviewed her to just talk with her. And within five minutes, I was like, absolutely. I mean, she had incredible insights and just really wonderful observations that she would make even in that short amount of time.
So I said to Spencer, yes, she sounds good. Meanwhile, I was cringing because I thought she was going to have a tough time expressing herself with parents with that heavy Indian accent/dialect.
And she turned out wonderful. Parents would come to me and praised her. And they depended on her. And here she is, a social worker for about 50 families. I mean, but she got it done. She was just amazing. So for sure she was one of the great ladies in my experience. And then we had other people. All the teachers were, with very few exceptions, really great folks.
So, yeah, there were an awful lot of them, a lot of folks, Susanna. And I feel badly if I don’t mention all of them that made a difference in Perkins and for me, particularly in my job. So all right, I’ll take a look at my list and see if there’s anybody I want to make sure I mentioned.
Yeah, we had an outside consultant, Arnie Kerzner. And Arnie would support the Perkins staff. He was a child psychiatrist and just a wonderful guy. I can’t tell you how many times he let somebody like me that hadn’t worked with real complicated families and kids give you a whole support and whatever. He was really good.
I think he’s still alive. He was quite a bit older than us, but I haven’t heard of his passing, so. So if I think of somebody else, that’s it. But, yeah, no, good bunch of people– if you work at Perkins, I think there’s something special. You’re not going to get rich, but you get support from everybody else. And that makes it work.
Coit: It’s a good place, it’s a special place. So you talked about parents. What did you find most satisfying about working with parents or interacting with parents?
Melander: Well, yeah, that brings up another interesting piece, too, Susanna. I didn’t really want – the timing was such that if I didn’t do it, then it probably would never get done, but to apply for the Supervisor’s position. I was teaching. I taught for five years. I absolutely loved it. I didn’t want to leave it.
You had more obligations as a Supervisor. And the main thing is that I’d be leaving the classroom and the kids. But you got to do it. Somebody else gets hired, and they’re there for the 35 years that I was, and I would never see the chance again. So I did it.
And that was one of the hardest part of leaving– the leaving the classroom. But it brought in a whole other thing. I didn’t have any training as a social worker. But as a Program Supervisor, you’re meeting with the parents all the time.
We had a parents group, and we had other things. You always had the individual IEPs every year, so you’d meet them and the town. And that’s where a lot of my focus ended up with – is relationships with the parents and with the towns. And that’s really a big part of what the Supervisor’s position was, including doing the academic things and the schedules and all that other jazz– hiring. Yeah, it was a pretty busy job.
Nevertheless, that was a quantum leap for me, even though I was training for supervision. I can’t say that it was something I was just doing to get out of the classroom. That was a big– big challenge for me.
Coit: It’s a big shift.
Melander: Yeah, for sure.
Coit: And so this may be going backwards, but what did you find most satisfying about working with the students when you were back in the classroom or when you were a supervisor? You still worked with students.
Melander: Well, yeah, what was really fun is that anything you would do as a teacher, you had to always keep in mind that if they had no or limited vision, their perception of everything had to be carefully described. And I remember that from working with my Great-Aunt Marie.
And, yes, they are sharp and all, but there are things that you don’t even think about. For example, where you are right now, what’s above? So I’d ask the kids, and they’d say, oh, the ceiling. I said, yeah, that’s right.
And actually, in some mobility classes, they would get a ladder and they could climb up and touch the ceiling to see if it was really there. But I said, well, what’s above the ceiling? Well, I don’t know, the sky.
You had to do these kinds of simple things before you could even get to the Leaning Tower of Pisa or something. And you had to teach concepts that were so fundamental to a visual person and carefully get them through it.
And they’re sharp enough kids. They would get it, and they would love it. The best part, I think, teaching is– it’s the old standard thing. It’s to work with a student and have them say after a time when they weren’t getting it and whatever, and then to say, I got it.
And there’s something special about that that you don’t get easily. It’s free, but as a teacher, I think to have a kid that’s not getting it say, oh, yeah, OK, I understand it! It makes your day. It makes your year. So that was the biggest thing.
Coit: When it clicks.
Melander: When it clicks, it’s so fun to see it in their face and really like they own something that they got – I got that!
Coit: Yeah.
Melander: So, yeah, that’s probably as big as anything. But the thing is, too, for teaching visually handicapped kids, you do have to have an approach that isn’t just verbal. I had a couple of students that could talk your ear off with these wonderful concepts and whatever that they may have read. I don’t know.
But they didn’t really have an idea of what it was. It just sounded good. And you don’t have to be blind to have that concept. There are plenty of people that sound good but may not have–
Coit: Go ahead.
Melander: May not have anything else. Yeah, go ahead.
Coit: So what were some of the most difficult or challenging aspects of your work?
Melander: Well, I think the most difficult thing is there were so many different things that were going on. I mean, you’d have standard problems, educational problems or maybe discipline problems or kids that were really sick, or you’d have always something going on. And then you’d have annual meetings on every student. So you had to prepare for that.
I don’t know. It was just that it was a whole bunch of things that made it difficult. Usually, everybody cooperated with everyone else and had supported everyone else. And I had good supervisors and all, so that always worked.
[Redacted to protect privacy]
Coit: Yeah.
But, yeah, there were all those things going on. There were no simple– you’d have your standard problems in the cottages that you’d have to look at or be in meetings for. I guess one thing that you do learn if you’re a supervisor that you will have meetings.
Coit: Yeah.
Melander: Meetings. And that’s probably one of the biggest– I’m sitting in Supervisors’ meetings, and I had just left one calamity, and I’m anticipating another one, and I’m trying to listen to what’s going on in the national something or the international something.
And I’m like, OK. But I know the minute I step out of this door, I’m going to walk right into trying to resolve or be a part of resolving some other situation in the program. So, yeah, those are the hard parts, I think.
Coit: And then on the flip side, what was the most rewarding parts?
Melander: Well, it was like I said. If you have a day where everything seems to go well, you have an IEP meeting and the parents in the town are really delighted when all the staff say what the students have been doing and what they were able to do, and you hear some poignant things from– I can remember the ones, and it’s not just one parent. It’s a couple during my years.
They would say, well, I just want to thank you all. We can now go to– our family can now go to a restaurant because our staff had taught our kids how to behave in a restaurant. And it seems smallish, but to those parents, it was just huge. And to see them say that–
Coit: Absolutely.
Melander: I can take them to– and not be embarrassed. That’s part of the thing. You want to take your child somewhere, but if they’re going to shout out or they’re going to say inappropriate things or not realize that there may be dozens of people around them, that can be an unpleasant time for a whole family. And to have that as the congratulations– that’s why you have to have a different perspective, I think, in our field.
Coit: Yep. OK, and then what do you know about Perkins that might be surprising to people?
Melander: Oh, what a good question. Be surprising to people? Well, I guess probably the– I guess the surprise to me is how, at least in the current population– not the original one when I first got there– that very few of our students have only one impairment– vision.
I would say 99% of them have that plus any combination of things. So if you stop and think about it for a minute, if you have a learning disability and you reverse things and you’re trying to read Braille how do you read reverse Braille?
Or if you’re physically handicapped at the same time, or because all of that is weighing on you for your whole lifetime, you have emotional problems or acting-out problems?
And I think the biggest thing about Perkins is that people feel, oh, yeah, they’re blind. And that’s really not it. Vision affects a lot of things. Unless you have really good compensation abilities, it’s going to be a tough life.
And that’s working with– I looked at a couple of random kids and got their profile, and I’m thinking, oh, she or he have, like, five impairments. And one of them is vision, for sure, but that’s not their most presenting problem. There’s something else that’s more presenting.
And that’s probably why they’re at Perkins rather than the public school if they had acting-out sessions and everything else or autistic-type behaviors. And, yeah, no, I think that our population– people don’t realize how complex it really is.
Coit: It is. And so what were some of the most– well, I’m going to ask two questions here. What are the most interesting or important events while you were at Perkins and, at the same time, the most memorable experience?
Melander: Yeah, well, I think I’m going to join probably everybody else that you’ve talked to. Number one thing at Perkins is Christmas. Christmas was always the thing for us. We start preparing for Christmas concerts and Christmas decorations and all of these things probably even before Thanksgiving– yeah, certainly before, because they had to practice the music. And so that’s a big part of it, that Perkins– whatever– always has featured that in the concerts and everything else.
We did another thing in the Lower School. This is worth talking about briefly. Back in 1969 or ’70– ’70, I think it was– the National Park Service got in touch with us and said, we are opening a new what they call Braille Trail– we call it Braille Trail– in Eastham, on the Cape.
And this was a specially designed trail that would go in through the marshlands and on a bridge, a walkway, bridge and everything else. But they had braille signs on it and whatever.
One of our former students had actually helped them do the braille signs for the trail. And they were opening up the Cape Cod National Seashore then. That’s when they were moving on it.
And there was a Coast Guard station there that they converted into school experiences. And schools all over New England, particularly Massachusetts for sure, would take a school group there for a whole week. And they wanted to know if we would do it.
Well, we became their favorite favorites because we were special, and we had the Braille Trail there, and it was really neat that it wasn’t only for high-functioning college-bound kids from public school. So we became their favorite. And when I left, we had gone for 35 consecutive years.
It was pretty amazing. We went every spring and stayed for a week. The kids love it. They still talk about it. When I talk about it, oh, do you remember when we went down to the Cape? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it was probably one of the great experiences growing up for those kids.
And the last I knew– at least after I retired, before I went into the Archives– the teachers were still going, not maybe for a whole week, but for an overnight or whatever, and the wheelchairs and the whole bit. So they still made it available to us, the National Parks. What status it is now, I have no idea.
Coit: So was that Lower School students that went or–
Melander: Lower School students only. Yeah, just my group. When we first started, I was a teacher. So I kind of spearheaded the thing as a teacher to get it going.
And then, when I went to Supervisor, it was just something that I made sure I went to. Now, I had plenty of things to do back in Watertown, but I said, I’m just going.
And so I went every year after that because that was my week with the kids and the staff. And it’s in a whole different– when you’re there 24 hours a day, you realize– but it was one of my favorite things to do, for sure.
Coit: And what kinds of things did you all do while you were down there?
Melander: Well, good question, because that evolved. When we first went, we had science projects, and we’d go down into the marshlands and we’d take a string and make, what, a yard-long square. And we’d go back and visit it every day to see what changes there would be.
Well, one week, five days, is really not a lot of changes that are going to happen. But it was part of the experience. And then we’d go to the whole National Seashore. And we’d do hikes, and we’d go, and there’s a couple of places there where the seagulls will take clams and they’ll drop them on a big rock.
And so at the bottom of the rock, you’d have all the shells. So the kids would go through the shells and learn. But it’s just the total experience on the Cape. We found something to do for all five days, that’s for sure.
Coit: That sounds fun.
Melander: And we cooked our own food. Yeah, we all cooked our own food as a team. And, yeah, that was a great experience.
And the kids– even today, if I happen to be on Bob Branco’s radio show there, they come on– Mr. Melander, do you remember when we were in the– yes, of course. They’re 65 years old now, but they’re still, Mr. Melander. Anyway.
Coit: It sounds like a great week.
Melander: Oh, absolutely. We just had a super time. And it was a great time for the staff, too, because you’d usually have about six or seven staff.
Now, that was at the beginning. Later on, it was more– you have wheelchair kids. We would do things with some of the kids that could walk through the pond areas. But if we could possibly get the wheelchair kids involved, we’d do that as well. So we may have split up a little bit more. Oh, and we went to the beach, as an aside.
Coit: Of course.
Melander: The kids loved that, of course. And so that was always fun. They always wanted to go down to the beach. OK, and we did nighttime walks and filled their week up.
Coit: Campfires, that kind of thing.
Melander: Campfires on our last night. Yep.
Coit: Nice.
Melander: We [inaudible] down, and that was– yes, it was really good because you had to get a special permit. But we did.
Coit: Ah.
Melander: We had standard stuff, sang all the songs and everything else. The kids remember that, I think, as much as– the campfire as much as anything, but lots of fun.
Coit: What are you most proud of in your work at Perkins? That’s a pretty big question, I know.
Melander: Yeah, yeah, I don’t know if there is a most. I guess, at least in my own mind, I hope people would agree we made it work for those years, for 35 years. There were not an awful lot of calamities. There were a few, I mean, some sad ones and whatever.
But no, just to– the experience is just loaded. I mean, I retired early. And it was, I guess, maybe because I was just kind of burned out, to a degree, and Sue and I wanted to go on our world trips and the whole combination of things.
Sue had retired as well, because she ended up working longer than me. They called her back to work on computers, and she worked– she was a teacher in Acton. And she retired before me. And that kind of left us– all the time that we’ve been married, we’d do our trips in the summer because we’re teachers.
You’d go to these places like Italy, and you just don’t do as much. So if you retire and you go in March or October, it’s a lot easier. So hold some things, as much as I loved my job and loved being at Perkins, I decided that was a good time to retire. And then we did our travel, and we did the majority of our traveling after that.
But nevertheless, the fact that I was able to come back– your Archives saved me to some degree in my first year after retirement. I worked on cataloging or whatever all of the pictures, the photographs, putting sleeves on all of them and labeling them if I knew what they were.
And that was a whole year. And it was something that– I was paid a nominal amount, but it wasn’t that so much. It was the idea of being able to come back to Perkins.
And at the end of that– oh, gosh, and I’m losing her name for the moment. I think you still have her– in Arizona, not Molly.
Coit: Charlotte?
Melander: Charlotte.
Coit: Yes.
Melander: Charlotte was one of my great people, too. She was a really terrific teacher. But in addition to being a teacher, before that, she was a Houseparent, and she was my secretary. She filled in as my secretary. And so she was awfully good in that way.
She said, well, I think the Archives could really use if you wanted to do– that was for the cataloging the photographs. The other thing is I think they need somebody to volunteer or whatever– it would be a volunteer position. And so I talked to Sue and said yeah. And we went in and talked to Molly, and we– I don’t know if you know the things that we did a lot of.
Coit: Well, that’s my next question is – I’m wondering if you can tell me what it’s been like volunteering and working in the archives after working at Perkins, so sort of with a different perspective.
Melander: Oh, absolutely. Well, first of all, it was one day a week, but it was a day we looked forward to. It was always something that was good that you could tell what day of the week it was. So, yeah, when you’re retired, you forget what day of the week it is.
Well, Thursday, we’re going into the Archives. So part of it was just being there was so good. And then, if you’re– Sue is a government major. But with a lot of history stuff, and I’ve always been a history buff– and to actually say that you’re among these incredible documents and Charles Dickens and Louisa May Alcott and umpteen other people, to just say, wow, this school has a history that it’s really great to still be connected to.
So I never felt that I’d left Perkins. Just a quickie for you, too, Susanna– I was figuring it out once. From the day that I came in for my first time at Perkins until I retired, I don’t think I had more than maybe two years where I wasn’t on campus every single month for some amount of time.
There was always– I was never away from the place. I was always there. And this helped that, working in the Archives, to be back and see some of my folks, just even if it’s saying hello on the–
Coit: Yeah.
Melander: –in the corridor or whatever. But, no, I really very much enjoyed it. We enjoyed the– and some of it was kind of drudge work, but it had to be done, and we felt that it was a good thing to do.
Coit: Yeah.
Melander: What did we do? Indexed all the–
Coit: Well, the most– not the most impressive, but one of the most impressive things that I think you did was decipher Polly Thomson’s handwriting.
Melander: Well, of course.
Coit: Because I think you and Sue are maybe two of only a handful of people who can read her handwriting. How did you– I don’t know if you can even answer this, but how did you do that? How did it happen?
Melander: Well, OK, all right, here you go, Susanna. We wondered that, too, because that was brought up. In fact, they said, I don’t think anybody else has ever tried to translate– not translate, transcribe her writing. I think, number one, we’re both elementary teachers.
Coit: Ah.
Melander: Does that say anything to you?
Coit: Yes.
Melander: If you’re an elementary teacher, Sue has seen everybody at all levels in their writing. And I have to a degree, too. So you sort of, kind of, get a combination of I know what she’s getting at to what must be logically the next letter if– “go to,” well, “the” is likely to be.
So we kind of pieced it together. This was something we had– when we were doing Polly’s letters, if people don’t realize what that is, Polly Thomson was a native Scotswoman and educated there. And she had– it almost looked like it was shorthand, but I think it was the way she wrote.
And I think half the time, she may have been writing on boats with Helen Keller, and the boat was rocking and– [Laughter]
Coit: It seems quite possible, yes.
Melander: –affecting how she wrote. But at any rate, we did begin to put it together. I remember a couple of times we went, and we were able to transcribe only one letter for the whole day that we were there. And it was like pulling your hair out and–
Coit: Yeah.
Melander: No, it was a certain skill. And the funny thing about it, Susanna, for whatever it’s worth– I’ve been away from that for, what, it was, like, five, six, seven years since we were there to do that?
Coit: Yeah.
Melander: So I looked at the Archives, and I saw one of the posted letters that you had in there.
Coit: Yeah.
Melander: I wonder if I could still do this. And I sat there, and I did. I was able to read it.
Coit: You’ve got it down now.
Melander: Yeah, I was– Sue did the typing on it, so I did a lot of the reading. But then, when I’d get stuck, I’d show her, and she’d be able to work it out with it. So between the two of us, we kind of got an interpreters special. But what a neat opportunity when you think about it.
Coit: Well, it’s invaluable. I mean, the things in those letters are fascinating, and it’s wonderful to have them available now thanks to you guys decoding.
Melander: Yeah. That’s in the Archives, right? I don’t think I’ve looked for it.
Coit: Yep.
Melander: I can look.
Coit: Yep.
Melander: Is it under the Nella Braddy Henney–
Coit: Yes, it’s in the Nella Braddy Henney collection.
Melander: OK, yeah. And it ended up being a frustrating time when you’re finished and you got it, you say, yeah. Just like the kids, you get the concept.
Coit: Yeah.
Melander: We can do that. And I think it was just starting with trial and error, starting with a good interpretation of script that you don’t often see. Yeah, she is a trip. You’ve tried, right? I think you–
Coit: Yeah, it’s very deceptive. It looks very neat and like you’d be able to read it.
Melander: Yeah.
Coit: And then you read it, and you can get the first– you recognize letters, but it’s not as easy as it looks like it will be.
Melander: Yeah. And the other thing is you’re thinking it’s British syntax and all. So you’ve got to watch– you might be reading Old English, you know?
Coit: Right.
Melander: And their perceptions of things that are slightly different than us, you know, they have–
Coit: The nicknames. The nicknames–
Melander: Yes.
Coit: –that she had for everybody.
Melander: Yes. I always wonder if Nella’s up there reading those things, and did she get– she’s finally, OK, Polly, fine.
[Laughter]
Coit: Well, yeah, I mean, she must have been able to read it.
Melander: Yeah, I guess in the same way. But, yeah, what a neat thing that Nella kept all of that.
Coit: Yeah, I feel very lucky that she did.
Melander: Yeah, because–
Coit: I think it’s a real treasure.
Melander: –you get special insights about Helen Keller’s perception of– I remember she was– they were in Japan, and she would say, well, all these little people are all around me. Well, Japanese are shorter people, but they were all buzzing around– just the little observations like that.
Coit: Yep.
Melander: It’s wonderful.
Coit: It is. It’s a great little collection.
Melander: Well, I’m glad we had a chance at that because it ended up– I think we ended up doing most of them, didn’t we?
Coit: Yeah. I think you got through just about all the boxes–
Melander: Yeah.
Coit: –if not all of them.
Melander: Didn’t they go to, like, 1961 or something, like, ’60–
Coit: I can’t remember. I think around there, yeah.
Melander: Well, Polly would have gone–
Coit: Yeah.
Melander: –passed before that, I suppose, in the ’50s. I don’t know.
Coit: Yeah. So what– how– this is a big question. How was your– or how has your association with Perkins influenced you or affected your life?
Melander: Oh, that’s an interesting– yeah, I guess it really has in that you thought you were in a very special place, and you felt you made some kind of a difference in those 40 years, and you just– it gave me a chance.
We did some travels and conferences. We went to Thailand and Israel and a couple of places on conferences. So it’d give you a chance to see the world scope of blindness.
So all of that, it was– you don’t think of it, because you’re up to your neck in stuff. But then, when you stop and think now, what a nice experience that was for a career, to be in a place that was so supportive and so unique in many ways.
And right now, when I talk to people– because I’ve been retired for a number of years. But when I talk to people in our trivia group, it’s going, I say, well, yeah, and what did you do? Well, I was a principal at a school for the blind. Oh, you mean Perkins? Yeah.
So it’s kind of a little prestige item. Well, that must be hard. It must be hard to read braille. And I said, well, I can read braille, but I read it with my eyes.
Coit: Right.
Melander: They think you can stand there and read it with your fingers, and no, no, you can read it with your eyes.
Coit: Yep. So that’s all the questions that I have. But is there anything that you think I missed or that you want to make sure that we hear or anything like that?
Melander: OK, I am looking at a couple of notes that I wrote as I was doing– I think we’ve covered– yeah, I was surprised. I threw in more things than I thought. No, it’s– yeah, that’s it.
And the only thing that I do regret is if I forgot to mention all of the really wonderful people that have helped me and that it was just fun to be with and that are great people and continue to be. I think I’ve only got a few teachers or staff in the lower school that are still working there.
[Redacted to protect privacy]
But, yeah, I mean, some of my classroom teachers, I could get you for another hour on some of the adventures of some of the just such great personalities and genuinely good people. And you have a good flavor of it.
Coit: Yeah, absolutely.
Melander: This is a place that’s supportive. Yeah, you might have some gripe about some thing that they’re still doing, but not too many times. Maybe I’m just too positive. I don’t know.
But, no, definitely a wonderful experience with really good people, and glad to be there. And actually, to end up our career in the Archives was kind of special, too. Even though we were there only once a week, it was a place we really looked forward to seeing Molly and Jen and you and whoever else. But it was good. How is it going?
Coit: I’m going to stop the recording.
Melander: Yeah.
