Dartmouth

To tell the truth, I have long dreamed of living life in a Tudor. This started years ago when I would drive through the streets of Winnetka and Evanston in the northern Chicago suburbs. Row upon row upon row of neat, tidy, warm-looking homes that made me feel both secure and romantic all at the same time. Not all were Tudors, but most were. They were solid, like the shoulders of Chicago. Then there was my time at Dartmouth when I studied English at Sanborn House, home of the Dartmouth English Department, where tea was served every day at 4:00 p.m. I fancied myself quite the Brit and swore that the rest of my life I would be forever surrounded by rich, dark English woods, cast stone, heavy spindled chairs, archways, gables, and Elizabethan anything. Edwin David Sanborn was a Dartmouth English professor for whom Sanborn House was built and named. He used to hold Thursday afternoon teas, served to undergraduates in his home. When Sanborn House was built, a wealthy alumnus, Sanborn’s son, actually, left an endowment to have Professor Sanborn’s tea custom upheld in perpetuity. Thus everyone takes a study or teaching break daily at 4:00 p.m. and gathers for tea and brilliant conversation in the middle of this dignified, gothic architecture at Sanborn House.