The Sage of Barrytown
By Cindy Kubik

Perched on the edge of one of the narrow roads that meander down toward the train tracks and the river in Barrytown, sits a curious little gray lantern house with an octagonal base and arches where the light ought to shine through. If you do your research, you'll find that it dates from the 1850s, was built by A. J. Davis who built the octagonal library at the Edgewater estate, and is listed on the National Registry. You'll note that from the stone patio in the back there is a lovely, pastoral view of a secluded valley. You may even learn that the previous owner fled into a winter night in the middle of the last century after claiming to see a ghost. But none of this distinguishes this charming abode as much as the identity of its present occupants.

Peg and Buz Gummere have lived in this house in the Hudson Valley since 1951, when he accepted the position of Director of Admissions at Bard College, and she began a long and distinguished association with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. The house is as full of character as its owners. It's delightful and cozy, but chock full of the flotsam of two very creative souls. The painted stone walls of the back room, the narrow, steep stairways, and the sense of nooks and crannies having been added on or changed as the family did likewise, seems the perfect setting for a couple who have lived their lives as though it were a great artistic and intellectual adventure.

Buz Gummere was born into a Quaker family from Haverford, Pennsylvania, and claims that he's 90 years old, though folks who know Buz swear he has the quickness of mind, spryness of body, and connectedness to the world that bespeaks a man in the prime of life. He will allow, however, that his wife is "somewhat younger." They met after he had finished his undergraduate work at Harvard and she was wrapping up hers at Wellesley. At the time Buz was living in Andover, Mass. and assigned to teach at a naval unit. He and some buddies had been invited to meet the friend of a friend

from the girl's college, but the young men had jokingly decided she must be a "dog." (This last admission came as something of a shock to Peg after 61 years.) Only Buz went to meet the mysterious Peg, and the rest is history.

After five years of living in Andover as a bachelor, Buz moved his new bride to Boston. It was the early 1940s and the Gummeres, like so many couples at the beginning of the war, were scrimping to make ends meet as they began their family. Peg recalls that all her friends were having babies at that time, and perceives a connection between war and the impulse to propagate. They eventually had three boys and a girl. At the same time, Buz became interested in a novel method for achieving psycho-physical freedom called the Alexander Technique. F. M. Alexander (1869-1955), was originally a Shakespearean actor who suffered from chronic laryngitis. In order to cure himself, he studied the muscular tension in his neck and spine and invented a method for easing that tension through thought and action.

Buz received a grant from a Quaker foundation at Haverford to take the three-year teacher training course, and to study with the movement's founder. Buz was intrigued by the all-encompassing nature of Alexander's ideas, though he doesn't agree with its labeling as a "technique." Buz perceived the potential for global application of Alexander's principles. He admires the psychophysical freedom of Neolithic creatures and infants, and sees the Technique as a possible method for recapturing Mankind's lost freedom. Nonetheless, in the 1940s Buz had a hard time explaining to friends what he was engaged in--they all thought it was some "strange religion."

Eventually, in 1944, Buz was certified to teach by Alexander himself, although ironically he never elected to do that, feeling he never really internalized the principles enough to teach them. Peg believes that her husband was too much of a scholar to achieve the kind of physical freedom required for Alexander, as he was always hunched over a book. Feeling at 90 that he may finally have the required perspective, Buz is "starting over" to study Alexander. Meanwhile, Peg also studied the Technique, became certified and did eventually teach. According to her, they endured years of "poverty and wild, unconventional, isolated situations in search of this Alexander business," but now the movement "has become global." She is bemused by the Alexander fervor of recent years ("it's become a party") and notes that she and Buz are looked upon rather like two elder statesmen of the movement.

Another reason that Buz never taught Alexander was that "he doesn't really like to teach." Buz can only laugh and agree with the irony of Peg's remark, as he's descended from a long line of teachers. The first record of a Gummere teaching in a Quaker school in a Philadelphia suburb goes back to 1788. Thereafter, Buz notes, there was a steady stream of scholars and teachers in his father's line. The family even wound up helping to found Haverford College. Buz thought that he might "make his fortune" teaching Alexander--but it didn't turn out that way. The couple moved to Media, Pennsylvania to teach the Alexander training course to the Quakers and lived near Swarthmore for five years while Buz taught in an elementary school that incorporated Alexander principles into the curriculum. To support the family, Peg recalls, he also "sold produce" in a grocery store, and the World Book Encyclopedia from his bicycle.

Buz's father was the dean of Admissions at Harvard, and earned a Ph.D. in classics from the university before going to Haverford College. The transition from Swarthmore to Barrytown came about for Buz and Peg partly due to this family legacy. In around 1950 the president of Bard College met the couple on holiday in Duxbury Mass., where, according to Buz, they "talked a blue streak" about education. Some time later Buz was offered the position of Director of Admissions at Bard. The family made the move and bought the octagonal house the next year. Buz traveled a lot as the Director of Admissions, a post he held for a decade. Meanwhile Peg, who according to Buz could have chosen a career in either art or music, filled her spare time playing the viola with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and "teaching strings."

In 1961, Buz left Bard and began his graduate work at Columbia University. He was pursuing a Ph.D. in Guidance and Student Administration at the Teacher's College. At some point Peg and their teenaged children joined Buz to reside in the Columbia penthouse dormitory for graduate students. Peg recalls that it wasn't easy raising teens in Manhattan in the 60s, but she and Buz had always enjoyed New York City, and eventually bought an apartment near Columbia, which they maintain to this day. According to Buz, Manhattan is "the center of the universe, with few close competitors." Subsequently, he was employed as an adjunct teacher at the Teacher's College, while Peg taught music at three different schools in Manhattan. The family continued to visit Barrytown often, and Peg maintained her affiliation with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic despite the distance.

In 1983, Buz retired from Teacher's College. He'd taught classes like "The American College Student," and written a book entitled How to Survive Education (Harcourt, Brace, Janovich, 1971). When he retired, colleagues threw him a party and gave him $500 to buy a computer. It took him four years to buy the machine, as Buz fancies himself something of a Luddite. Still, a whole new philosophical world has opened up for him since he has been able to access the Internet. Up in his third story "tower" study, he can stay connected to the world and the intellectual exploration that has always fascinated him.

Recently, Buz has been rediscovering the works of a British author by the name of Lancelot Law Whyte. In conjunction with an on-line group called "philosphere," Buz has been exploring and promoting Whyte's works, especially his favorite, The Next Development in Man. Buz bought a paperback copy of Whyte's first book when he was Admissions Director at Bard in the 1950s and kept a copy of it in his desk drawer "like a bottle of whisky" to pull out secretly when he needed a dose. Like Whyte, Buz believes that the world entered a new epoch after 1914, one which had the potential to become more highly developed than the Golden Age of Greece. Whyte saw youth and America as the future. Also, Whyte emphasized an inner divinity--like the Quakers, Buz reflects, who said that God is in each one of us.

At some point in the midst of Buz's reverie, Peg is bound to say "Oh, not Whyte again" just to elicit a smile from Buz. Peg, with her indomitable energy and organization, seems the perfect foil for the more laid-back and philosophical Buz. It's hard to believe they've been married for over sixty years, as they still spar and laugh like newlyweds. He claims that he and Peg are modern-day Edwardians--caught in the transition between epochs. It's clear that he has the utmost admiration and respect for his life partner. He is the one who will boast to guests of her one-woman show in NYC, and laud her talents both as painter and musician. When Buz suddenly breaks into song to underscore a point, his wife wryly points out that Quakers aren't supposed to dance or sing, which is why she had to become the musician of the family. She refuses to retire, and still teaches strings to students in their home. Although genetics may have something to do with it (Peg's father lived to be 96), she attributes her energy and drive to her own Alexander training..

An example of her fortitude came three years ago when Peg was performing with the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra. Unbeknownst to the audience, she played a viola concerto with a temperature of 101 for two nights running and received thunderous applause. With heartfelt sincerity Buz will admit that Peg "is a phenomenon, and a constant inspiration to me. She has a terrific sense of honor and a terrific sense of devotion to use the gifts she has and use them really well." Following this wonderful tribute from her partner, Peg-the-Yankee adds that "a good musician just brings her cough medicine with her."

When Peg and Buz moved to Barrytown half a century ago they found the local community to be positively "medieval." Peg thought the nearby Rokeby estate was "pure Chekhov." She reminisces about Tivoli in the 1950s--a faded factory town that had once made "panties and chocolate." Buz pipes in to say that once upon a time Bard sociology professors would assign their students a local family to document for their senior theses (as if they were characters in an Erskine Caldwell novel). In the 1950s there were still oxen in the village of Barrytown, and eccentric old women who lived with their geese and no running water or electricity. Chanler Chapman was considered the "laird," and the landscape looked like a Rembrandt painting..

Over juice and granola on the patio of a morning, Buz ruminates about the transition from the modern epoch to the contemporary one while Peg handles the myriad calls that come in as they plan for a holiday at their house in Duxbury, Mass. Peg has the no-nonsense capability and dry humor of a Yankee from way back. Indeed, she grew up in an "ancient Providence family" in Rhode Island where, as Buz maintains, her parents were "bluebloods" and her father went to Brown University. In touring the Gummeres' home, it's evident that art features prominently in their lives. Peg did her graduate studies at the Art Students League, and her lovely landscape paintings and drawings are scattered throughout the house.

A visit with Peg and Buz Gummere is one of life's rare gifts, an inspiration to those who fear there's an age cutoff for artistic and intellectual activism. Take time to visit the Tivoli Artists Co-Op between September 6th and 29th to see Peg's work in a show "Celebrating the Human Spirit--on the anniversary of the events of 9/11."