When Jim St. Clair came to New Canaan High School, he lived with my family until he found his own place to live. We all became good friends and my sister and Jim have been writing letters back and forth for years. My younger brother Ed spent some time with Jim in Cape Breton. All these years later I remember Ed talking about the wonderful conversations around the stove that heated Jim's home. We were all very fortune to know this wonderful man.
Jim helped me find a place in the senior class during the fall of 1963. He chose me for a part in the senior play, The Admirable Crichton. I was new to the school and my father's career had caused me to move so much I had attended 10 different schools in primary and secondary.. I like to think my fellow students came to know of me through that play. I'll have to leave the truth of that hope up to you. I just calculated that in 1963 Jim would have only been 32 years old. He was a very understanding and supportive teacher for a lost teen searching for a sense of self.
I'm glad that I reached out to Jim about twelve years ago to thank him for his influence on my life. Here are excerpts from the letter I wrote to him then.
"Occasionally I get feedback from people whose lives I have influenced. When that happens, I am sometimes surprised to hear what they remember about things I don't remember ever having said or done. So maybe some of what I am about to say will work like that for you. Whether you knew you were doing it or not, I want you to know how your work influenced me."
"In college, I changed my major from math to humanities, which allowed me to follow my nose through the learning process. Taking whatever subjects interested me somehow magically fulfilled the requirements of that major. I studied literature, psychology, philosophy, religion, social psychology, art appreciation, sociology, geography, economics, history of the English language, symbolic logic, music and more. What I had gotten from you was a thirst for breadth in learning, and an awareness of connections between diverse academic areas: that much of what I would find in one field of study would be just another facet of what I would find in some other field of study. I loved your fascination and play with words--how you led your students through Latin, Greek, English, and wherever else our words have traveled. Part of what I learned is that the etymology-bone is connected to the history-bone, which is connected to the literature-bone, which is connected to the psychology-bone, and they all work together with a lot of other bones to form a body of knowledge about who we are and how we got this way and what kind of a universe this is that we live in. Whether you intended it or not, that was one of your gifts to me."
"It's been a great life so far. I'm glad that I was blessed with education, not just job training. For that, I have New Canaan High School, and my most memorable teacher, to thank. Please accept this belated expression of appreciation."
Jim made such a deep and lasting impression on me -- and many others, I know -- during a few short but formative years at NCHS that it surprised me later to realize that his own time there was only a relatively brief segment in his long, vigorous, creative life. Cape Breton was his true home, and he will be long remembered and greatly missed there, just as he is missed and fondly remembered by the likes of us, spread all over the world, in whose lives he played a vivid if brief role a long time ago.
My favorite quote from the CBC obituary linked above is "Everybody who looked to him for advice knew that they mattered to him, that they had a special place in his heart," and I think we all knew that that applied whether you were his star Latin pupil (which I was not) or a miscreant hauled before him as NCHS Vice Principal (that wasn't me, either!).
It was my great privilege and pleasure to have some email correspondence with Jim during the last year of his life, resulting in the message from him which graces the home page of this website, in which he made it clear that he still feels that way about us. What a gift he had -- among his many gifts -- to be able to do that; and what a gift to us. In those few back-and-forths with him, once again, after so many years, I had the almost-scary feeling of being seen more clearly and objectively than I can ever see myself, and came away grateful once again for his kind words of acceptance and guiding encouragement.
Groping for a single word, I have said that James Otis St. Clair was one of the most memorable people I have ever met. To that, I have to add that he was one of the kindest and most caring. Requiescat in pace.
Mary Dixon
When Jim St. Clair came to New Canaan High School, he lived with my family until he found his own place to live. We all became good friends and my sister and Jim have been writing letters back and forth for years. My younger brother Ed spent some time with Jim in Cape Breton. All these years later I remember Ed talking about the wonderful conversations around the stove that heated Jim's home. We were all very fortune to know this wonderful man.
Paul Glassen
Jim helped me find a place in the senior class during the fall of 1963. He chose me for a part in the senior play, The Admirable Crichton. I was new to the school and my father's career had caused me to move so much I had attended 10 different schools in primary and secondary.. I like to think my fellow students came to know of me through that play. I'll have to leave the truth of that hope up to you. I just calculated that in 1963 Jim would have only been 32 years old. He was a very understanding and supportive teacher for a lost teen searching for a sense of self.
Greg Morgan
I'm glad that I reached out to Jim about twelve years ago to thank him for his influence on my life. Here are excerpts from the letter I wrote to him then.
"Occasionally I get feedback from people whose lives I have influenced. When that happens, I am sometimes surprised to hear what they remember about things I don't remember ever having said or done. So maybe some of what I am about to say will work like that for you. Whether you knew you were doing it or not, I want you to know how your work influenced me."
"In college, I changed my major from math to humanities, which allowed me to follow my nose through the learning process. Taking whatever subjects interested me somehow magically fulfilled the requirements of that major. I studied literature, psychology, philosophy, religion, social psychology, art appreciation, sociology, geography, economics, history of the English language, symbolic logic, music and more. What I had gotten from you was a thirst for breadth in learning, and an awareness of connections between diverse academic areas: that much of what I would find in one field of study would be just another facet of what I would find in some other field of study. I loved your fascination and play with words--how you led your students through Latin, Greek, English, and wherever else our words have traveled. Part of what I learned is that the etymology-bone is connected to the history-bone, which is connected to the literature-bone, which is connected to the psychology-bone, and they all work together with a lot of other bones to form a body of knowledge about who we are and how we got this way and what kind of a universe this is that we live in. Whether you intended it or not, that was one of your gifts to me."
"It's been a great life so far. I'm glad that I was blessed with education, not just job training. For that, I have New Canaan High School, and my most memorable teacher, to thank. Please accept this belated expression of appreciation."
Jackie Anderson
Jim made such a deep and lasting impression on me -- and many others, I know -- during a few short but formative years at NCHS that it surprised me later to realize that his own time there was only a relatively brief segment in his long, vigorous, creative life. Cape Breton was his true home, and he will be long remembered and greatly missed there, just as he is missed and fondly remembered by the likes of us, spread all over the world, in whose lives he played a vivid if brief role a long time ago.
My favorite quote from the CBC obituary linked above is "Everybody who looked to him for advice knew that they mattered to him, that they had a special place in his heart," and I think we all knew that that applied whether you were his star Latin pupil (which I was not) or a miscreant hauled before him as NCHS Vice Principal (that wasn't me, either!).
It was my great privilege and pleasure to have some email correspondence with Jim during the last year of his life, resulting in the message from him which graces the home page of this website, in which he made it clear that he still feels that way about us. What a gift he had -- among his many gifts -- to be able to do that; and what a gift to us. In those few back-and-forths with him, once again, after so many years, I had the almost-scary feeling of being seen more clearly and objectively than I can ever see myself, and came away grateful once again for his kind words of acceptance and guiding encouragement.
Groping for a single word, I have said that James Otis St. Clair was one of the most memorable people I have ever met. To that, I have to add that he was one of the kindest and most caring. Requiescat in pace.