Genius of Place Read Online Free PDF

reverend would slip off his shoes, creep up the stairs, and stand at the threshold, silently listening. If he detected discussion of anything save for lessons, he’d burst through the door and whack the boys about the shoulders with a broom handle. Invariably, he’d shout, “Oh, the depravity of human nature!”
    Hot water was provided on Saturday nights only. The boys were expected to wash their ears, necks, and feet. Twice a day, for prayers, the boys kneeled on the cold, bare floor of the parsonage kitchen.
    Fred was soon joined at Brace’s country school by John, his younger brother. John was growing into an attractive boy—also small for his age—with tousled hair and a winningly casual demeanor. He was very smart, but he didn’t scuff against the world like Fred. Nor did he share Fred’s lack of focus. At Brace’s school, John would continue on an academic course that would take him to Yale, where he’d study medicine. In the years ahead, the bond between the two brothers was destined to grow tighter. The two of them were set apart, after all, as the only children born to Charlotte Olmsted before she died.
    As for Fred’s half-siblings back home in Hartford, he knew them only fleetingly. They were more like cousins. Three of the six children born to John and Mary Ann Olmsted would die before reaching maturity. These departed half-siblings would be little more than dimly recalled shadows for Fred, whose young life was already a study in inconstancy.
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    Another big blow soon followed. At age fourteen, Fred developed a severe rash from coming in contact with the plant poison sumac. The infection spread to his eyes, and soon his vision was seriously impaired. He feared that he was going blind. Naturally, he had no choice but to withdraw from Brace’s school.
    Fred was urged to pursue a course of “hydrotherapy”—then all the rage. In Fred’s case, a regimen of ocean bathing—exposing his eyes to saltwater—seemed the best approach. Off went Fred to the seaside town of Saybrook, Connecticut, where he boarded with the Reverend George
Clinton Van Vechten Eastman, who was to oversee his cure and also act as his tutor.
    The better Fred’s eyesight became, the more he was required to study with Eastman. Not surprisingly, his improvement was slow. So Fred’s father took him to New York City to consult with a doctor. The doctor suggested that Fred continue with the hydrotherapy. Apparently, the man also recommended that, given Fred’s delicate eyesight, he should scrap any plans of going to college. During the 1800s, kids frequently went off to college in their midteens—at fourteen or fifteen. By now, Fred had fallen desperately behind in his studies anyhow.
    Gradually, Fred regained his eyesight, thanks to the wonder of his hydrotherapy sessions in Saybrook. Or perhaps the healing was achieved by the simple passage of time, accompanied by very little stress, on a beach. Either way, Fred was done with formal schooling. He had a doctor’s orders to prove it. But if he wasn’t going to college, he needed to learn a trade. Fred selected surveying. Of course, surveying requires eaglesharp eyesight in order to spot topographical details and render precise maps. There wasn’t much logic in any of this. But his father was willing to entertain anything, anything at all, to get Fred moving again.
    Fred entered into an apprenticeship with F. A. Barton, a surveyor who also happened to be studying to become a minister. This seemed an ideal combination. Fred could learn a profession under the tutelage of someone who could also look out for his spiritual development. Neither of Barton’s qualifications seems to have made an impact on Fred. John Olmsted wrote Fred a letter, gently suggesting that his son had reached an age where “we begin to feel that the time is come for us to throw off boyish notions and habits.” His father