A wartime casualty among the plushier prep schools last week was Connecticut's Avon School, formerly Avon Old Farms. Its founder, solid, idiosyncratic Mrs. Theodate Pope Riddle, announced that it would close in June due to war conditions.
Avon Old Farms' closing was only the most recent of a nearly continuous series of shocks to the school—which have kept the fashionable Farmington area of Connecticut agog as to what Mrs. Riddle and her unusual educational foundation might do or exhibit next. Theodate Pope Riddle was born in Salem, Ohio, the daughter of Alfred Atmore Pope, who had a fortune from Ohio iron...