THE CATAMOUNT ARTS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Peggy Henry

I was brought up in a suburb of New York City, attended Smith College and after two years transferred to Stanford University. I graduated with an art and humanities major. My first job out of college and the only one directly related to my major was selling postcards at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It lasted six months.  I was hired for a Christmas job in the personnel department (now called human resources) at Macys. I stayed for more than a year and met my husband, Fritz Henry who also worked at Macys and had been temporarily assigned to that department. When we married, I had to quit because they couldn’t have a married couple working in the same department, and, of course, I was the one to go. We lived in Stuyvesant Town when it really was a low rent alternative, and had two girls, two years apart.

Fritz, who was still with Macys, was transferred to a Macys store in Wichita, Kansas.  Everyone worked in the oil or airplane business, and we had little in common with any of them.  We were glad when he was transferred back to a Macy store in Newark and we moved to Livingston, N. J.

I stayed home while the girls were small, and we all got involved with a Saturday program at a nearby Junior High School that presented classes in art, science writing and especially in modern dance including a weekday evening class for teen-agers.  Our teachers were the most prominent dancers in New York, including Meredith Monk. I became director of the school, which eventually got folded into a new YMHA. I credit it with their long term interest in dancing.

 While the girls were finishing high school, and afterwards, I took a series of human resource jobs with local companies, finishing the last ten years with the human resources directorship at Drew University in Madison, N.J.

As soon as Fritz was eligible to retire, I also quit and we acted on our long term dream of moving to Vermont.  We wanted to be close to our family retreat on Bell Island in Lake Memphremagog, but Newport held no attraction, so we started working our way down 91, until we came to St. Johnsbury.  We felt that a town that had a nearby college, an outstanding high school and athenaeum should have interesting people, and all our friends here proved that we were right.

Early on I went to Catamount.  I first met Jay and Craven and Bess.  They offered me an exhibit in the gallery after I showed them my slides, and my works were up for the usual month.  At some point, after Phil Reynolds was there I went in to talk with him and told him of my experience New Jersey, and he immediately said – I want you on the board. The rest is history. 

I became chair of the board when Leslie Gensburg had to leave to accompany her husband for treatment for leukemia, which was completely successful.

Catamount, and its ups and downs, have been my main interest and activity throughout my time in St. J, and has brought me immense pleasure, along with the pain, and many good friends.

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