Celebrating the Life of Alice Gerard

Alice Gerard and her younger sister Karen happily grew up in a house with a river view, fourteen doors, three furnaces and a chapel. Alice was ten when her parents first discovered the house on Woods Road. Her father, Cushman Haagensen, a medical researcher at the time, realized he couldn’t afford it on his salary so he changed professions, opening a practice as a cancer surgeon. “My father went onto become the premier breast cancer surgeon in the country,” Alice proudly relates.

Alice spent her summers as a child on Cape Cod. Her grandparents, Dana and Alice Munro, had purchased property on Metoxit Point, overlooking Waquoit Bay, in 1900. Other family members later built houses on the Point.“It was full of the sounds of children when I was young,” Alice recalls. She developed a love of sailing here. “I was exposed to small boats from the time I was a child. I sailed almost every afternoon, the water and wind bringing me home.” Alice has gathered photos and stories from the years there into a book, Our First One Hundred Years. Alice spent two years at Smith College then transferred to the University of New Mexico where they had classes in archeology, a subject that held a particular interestfor her. It was here she met fellow student Sam Gerard.  They were married in September 1951, the year after her arrival, by a justice of the peace, much to her mother’s dismay. After the arrival of Simon, their first child, the couple moved back east, living in a cottage on her parent’s property. Sam got a job at Lamont-Doherty Oceanographic Institution in Palisades, where he stayed for 37 years, serving in later years as Marine Superintendent. Two more children, Tony and Annie, soon followed.

In 1957 Alice’s parents purchased a slanted acre of land just below their house for $5,000 where the Gerards built their home. It was designed by Ferdinand Eisman, a partner of Eric Gugler, the architect for several other Sneden's Landing homes. Alice and Sam contributed to its design and served as contractors.

During her years as the mother of small children, Alice occupied herself by earning a master’s degree in education from Banks Street College. She started teaching third grade at Tappan Elementary School when Annie turned seven.  Three years later she took a leave of absence to assist her father in researching and writing a book on the importance of breast feeding. Please Breast Feed Your Baby was the result. Alice returned to teaching, this time at the Junior High School in Blauvelt. While here, she met three like-minded teachers who believed education needed to be freer. The quartet went on to found the Rockland Project School, an alternative “free school” focused on student-centered learning. Alice recounts, “I was lucky to have a dream and to be able to bring it to fruition.” Classes for the progressive school were first held at a Quaker Meeting House then moved to an abandoned former school on Rockland Lake. “I taught every subject to every child from the age of six to twelve,” Alice says. She was there until 1990. Alice and Sam became involved in a French archeologist site called Glozel. “We went to France every year for meetings.” Glozel: Bones of Contention, written by Alice, followed. Music was another interest. She played recorder, cello, piano and guitar. When it became difficult to play, she turned to singing and now belongs to a choral group. Alice is also a potter. She taught pottery at the Rockland Project School and had a wheel and kiln at the house. When Alice Haagensen, Alice’s mother, moved to Palisades, she became interested in its history, a passion she shared with her father who had been head of the history department at Princeton. She published Palisades and Snedens Landing: From the Beginning of History to the Turn of the Century in 1966 and founded the Palisades Historical Society after discovering the 1,600-page diary of Nicholas Gesner, a 19th century local farmer, shipbuilder and lawyer who lived on Closter Road.  Thee close-to-illegible tome discussed happenings like the cholera epidemics and nearby shipwrecks as well as farming chores and problems with neighbors. When her mother who died at 105 couldn’t finish translating the diary, Alice stepped in and completed it, publishing two versions of the diary.

“Liz Finck who was chairman of the Historical Society for many years was responsible for listing all the historic houses in Palisades,” Alice says. “She worked in conjunction with Michael Rebic of the National Register of Historical Places. I wrote Historic Houses of Palisades in 2007, based on his findings.” Alice who was closely involved in the startup of this newsletter back in 1977, has been the one who has kept it rolling throughout the years and still serves on its staff. Thank you, Alice.

Alice has two grandchildren, Peregrine and Cory, and two great-grandchildren, Leo and Orion. She still spends the month of July on the Cape on the family homestead. “It’s quieter now. I miss the laughter of children that once filled the place.”