S P O T L I G H T D E P A R T M E N T S - The Taft School

S P O T L I G H T
The white wood duck is a mutation, not an
albino, of the Carolina wood duck found
along the eastern seacoast. The mutation
happens once in 100,000 birds. The bird on
the right is an old squaw, which is found
along the Atlantic seacoast.
Julia and Kem Appell ’55 in their backyard aviary.
education. As Julia explains, “We can’t be
all things to all people. We make the choice
not to breed the birds.” Instead, they are
bred and hatched in Litchfield and then
brought to the Sanctuary. In fact, Kem is
quick to invoke his “mentor” Mike Bean,
and to credit his help with creating and
maintaining the Sanctuary. Mike is some
thirty years younger than Kem, and is the
superintendent and curator of the
Livingston-Ripley Waterfowl Trust in
Litchfield, begun by Dillon Ripley, an ornithologist
and former secretary of the
Smithsonian. It is Mike Bean who first
showed Kem, clad in his Cole-Haan shoes
and his Sunday finest, as they tramped together
through the muddy grounds of the
Waterfowl Trust, what is possible to create
for these birds. Kem’s reaction, he says, was
“typical: I want it all, and I want it now.”
Unfortunately, he had to wait for the
eggs to hatch and for the hatchlings to
fledge (to feather), so he read, and he
learned “the hard way.” I sense the determination
of this man—and the vision,
and the patience it took to execute his
dream. There was much to add and to
alter in terms of his property. The pond
originally held trout; the neighbors had
to learn to accept the deliveries of propane
to heat the buildings, and to get
used to the school buses. Kem gave up
golf, skiing, the country club, and trips to
the Caribbean. He and Julia are fairly tethered
to their backyard oasis, in fact, and
they get only part-time help in running
and maintaining the Sanctuary. Yet both
are quick to affirm its centrality in their
lives and its many rewards. Put most simply,
it is something to share with others,
from second graders to college students,
from grandchildren to hip-wader wearing
Audubon Society members.
The Appells’ creation of the Sanctuary
has led to professional memberships
and an ardent side interest. Kem is on the
board of the American Pheasant and Waterfowl
Society. He has also developed a
passion for wood carvings of birds and has
been asked to judge carvings from all over
the world. “Wildfowl Art,” as it is called,
is a beautiful and delicate form of representation.
Like the second graders, wood
carvers also make use of the Sanctuary.
They come to observe and study the eider
and other waterfowl living on the pond.
Kem and Julia show me some of these incredible
carvings, and I am struck by the
detail of each. Life-size and life-like in every
way, the carvings are warm and vivid
renderings of the very creatures I had seen
swimming, splashing and feeding on the
pond. Thanks to the Appells, I am far away
from Friday afternoon traffic and the cares
of a restless world.
Sara Beasley is a member of the English
Department. She came to Taft two years
ago after teaching at Davidson College.
20 Winter 1999