Woodstock offered a refuge to all kinds of students, and a place away from the "real" world or the "natural" family, at least for a time; a place where one could define what one was for oneself -- and be accepted for that. The school offered ample time for experiment, room for growth, and tolerance, even encouragement for idiosyncrasy. At the same time it expected students to progress, to mature in fairly traditional ways, and while it tolerated those who tested the limits of acceptable performance for a long time (some thought too long too often), it did not tolerate them forever. The inherent tension between these sometimes contradictory goals -- providing sufficient relaxation to encourage emotional growth and, simultaneously, setting very high standards -- gave the school its special dynamic.

Not that all of Woodstock's students were kids seeking refuge. Some were attracted by the sheer vitality of the place. And when the school worked best over the years, it had a solid minority of students who just wanted an academically strong school, like Ken Webb's kids, Sukie and Bobby (who was a seventh grader). But Roger Phillips's situation was more typical, so much so that at times students with less colorful family lives felt they should invent problems so as not to seem out of it.

When Woodstock opened an September 26, 1945, there were 35 students enrolled, ranging from little sixth graders to a senior class of three, as well as one or two juniors who were also war veterans. Some students had scholarships, but most were paying the full $1,200 a year fee for tuition and board (day students, $300). Most of them came from the Atlantic coast region, from Washington, D.C. to Maine. Several, like Roger, came from New York City, several others from Boston. They came to this new and unknown school through networks of relatives, friends, and colleagues that Ken Webb, David Bailey, and Elizabeth Johnson had developed over the years.

They delivered a diverse group. The first student on campus arrived well before the start of school, because she had nowhere else to go: Patience Malet, an English girl with her own horse, whose mother was an Army lieutenant in Denver. The three seniors were Phebe Brown of an old Boston family, Ray Carpenter who was heading toward a military career, and Mary Lea Johnson of the Johnson & Johnson Company family (she came from an unhappy time at the Dobbs School, recommended by friends of Miss Johnson). Roger Phillips chose Woodstock because there was no formal dress code. Louis Wislocki, unhappy at Milton, found his way to Woodstock because his mother, Florence Clothier Wislacki, had been at Baldwin under Miss Johnson, who drew her into working with the school. Dr. Wislocki, who was by then a child psychiatrist on staff at the Home for Little Wanderers in Massachusetts, recommended one of her youngsters for the school: Jimmy Barter from Maine -- remarkably bright, but with a Dickensenian childhood that led to trouble with the law by the time he was 13 -- agreed to accept a scholarship to Woodstock because its mattresses were better than the ones at reform school. Harvey Tyler became the school's youngest student, a sixth grader, because his and David Bailey's families were old friends. Joe Berphardt's father was in the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture in Washington. David Ezekiel's father was an agriculture specialist for the United Nations. Klaus Heimann, who fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1939, was having a terrible time in public school in Massachusetts until a friend of Miss Johnson arranged for him to have a scholarship to Woodstock. Mary Lo Doggett and Lillian Russell both came over from Ken's Camps. Helle Krafft came from Norway as a ninth grader, but was happy to get away from five confined years of war and her mother. Walter Walker's aunt, Helen Gahagan Douglas, knew the Baileys through spending summers in Vermont. And so it went. Whatever brought them to Woodstock, students who thought about it certainly knew that their 35 places there were not won through fierce competition (there was not even an entrance exam then). But for most, that was always one of the school's plusses, that it offered a cooperative respite from bruising competition. Even more important in 1945 was the newness, the sense of adventure, and the growing belief that they were creating something of lasting importance, a school with humane values. [Barter int; Phillips int; DWB int 1.8.74; Krafft letter 11.18.83]

Already a long way from her roots in Weatherford, Texas, with a string of Broadway and movie hits to her credit, Mary Martin acted like just another 31 year old mother of a ninth grader

Larry Hagman, the future J.R. Ewing in the 'Dallas" series on CBS, learned of Woodstock through his stepgrandmother who was a friend of one of David Bailey's cousins. "He was 14 at the time or something," David said years later, "and I didn't realize what a terribly naughty boy he was at the time, but he was a very naughty boy." Larry quickly became one of the stars of sorts in the school, where his willingness to try almost anything also led to his eventual forced departure. Larry is also widely remembered for his good natured, though sometimes extreme antics. Day student Margaret Nichols came to school by horse every day and, without asking, Larry would sometimes ride her horse around the baseball field trying to get it to perform rodeo tricks. Another time, perhaps apocryphally, Larry was on skis making love to a young lady, also on skis, when they began to slide out of the woods toward the lift line, so fell down on purpose, and told all their friends about it later. And Larry kept a striking photo of his mother on his bureau. One of his roommates, Jim Barter, who would become a nationally prominent psychiatrist, recalled coming into his room on the first day of school: "There was this show girl in a very skimpy costume on the mirror and I looked at it and made some sexist gross remark.... And Larry said to me, that's my mother. I was rather backward, I'd never known anyone's mother ran around looking like that. But I don't think he was peeved, I think he was just setting me straight. It was an interesting picture for a kid to have of his mother." [Barter interview p 1/9 & 5/14]