The Faces of Davenport: Yesterday & Today

“It is only in appearance that time is a river.

It is rather a vast landscape

and it is the eye of the beholder that moves“

– Thornton Wilder

Happy Monday, Gnomies!

Congratulations on making it this far in the Spring semester!

We hope that after an invigorating Spring Fling weekend full of music, merriment, and good food, that you have the energy to finish off the semester strong. As you begin finalizing your papers and preparing for finals, we wanted to help put things into perspective for you with our weekly Davenport alum feature. This week’s feature is about a former Davenport fellow, Thornton Wilder, class of 1920!

After spending a part of his childhood Yantai, China, Wilder returned to finish his primary education in California. After enlisting in the Army for three months, Wilder attended Oberlin college and later attended Yale. At Yale, Wilder was a member of the literary society Alpha Delta Phi, and has written about his positive experiences in his Chemistry I and Geology I classes.

After graduating from Yale, Wilder went on to receive his MA in French literature from Princeton University. After studying archaeology and Italian in Rome and teaching French in New Jersey, Wilder published his first novel, The Cabala, in 1926, earning him a Pulitzer Prize. He later won Pulitzer Prizes for his play Our Town in 1938 and for his play The Skin of Our Teeth in 1943. Wilder also received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1957, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, and the National Book Award in 1968 for The Eighth Day.

Along with his prolific literary career, Wilder was also honored for his military service in World War II and taught at the University of Chicago and Harvard.

Thornton Wilder’s contributions to, and great influence on, literature were honored in 1997 with an exhibition at the Beinecke Library. All of Wilder’s works can be found in the Library of Congress.

You can read more at:

http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/exhibitions/thornton-wilder-centenary-exhibition

https://yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/3328-thornton-wilder-s-yale

Our featured Davenport alum this week is John Caserta, Class of ’01!

After graduating from Yale in 2001, Mr. Caserta went on to serve as a risk analyst for Marsh & McLennan. In 2005, John established Caserta & de Jongh, LLC, a financial planning practice and now serves as Managing Director.

Besides staying connected to Yale by sharing his passion for financial literacy and education through his on-campus talks on intelligent financial decision-making, Mr. Caserta also advises for the North Haven Rotary Club and is a member of the Yale Club of New Haven. Mr. Caserta has published articles on finance research and has also given presentations to business owners. Additionally, he is fluent in Italian and has played the trumpet since the age of 10.

Mr. Caserta was generous enough to agree to speak with us over the phone earlier this month, and we are quite excited to share insights from one of our first ever conversations with a Gnomie alum!

DAVENPORT AIDES: Why do you continue to stay involved with campus activities?

JOHN CASERTA: If I think back on it, Yale has been a part of my life since oldest brother started attending. And my middle brother attended, then I attended. In particular I’ve found my niche in doing something I’m passionate about and sharing that with Yale community. For me, there are a lot of different talents and resources in the Yale community. If I think back, I’ve loved every minute. Part of it is nostalgic. Part of it is continuing the experience for current students, and enhancing it by bringing things I’ve learned along the way I wish I knew in college. For me, there’s the accessibility factor. That makes it easy for me to interact with the school and give back to it. It’s about perpetuating the Yale experience for future generations of alums. I have so many [Yale] connections, friends. In fact, my fiance is class of ‘04. She has a lot of connections to the university. If I take a look at the people we know, our lives are intertwined with the University. At the end of the day, I love being on campus. I love my time there. It’s out of the passion I have for Yale. It’s the main reason I interact and give back.

DAVENPORT AIDES: What is your favorite Davenport memory or aspect of the Davenport community?

JOHN CASERTA: Me, my brothers and some of our friends went out to Harvard for The Game, and we were watching the game. It happened to be the year that Yale won. Of course, everybody storms the field, and we’re celebrating. We see an individual with the Davenport flag. And so we’re like, “Yeah Davenport!.” The individual proceeds to throw the flag on the ground and start stomping on it. We didn’t take too kindly to that. Obviously, it was someone from Harvard. A scuffle ensued. Law enforcement was involved. No one got arrested. They wanted to take the flag away because it was attached to brass pole. They didn’t want people swinging a pole in a crowded area. After negotiation with Cambridge’s finest, we came to an agreement that we could take the flag and they could take the pole. We felt pretty good that we were able to take the Davenport flag. It was the start of Thanksgiving break, [so we] held onto the flag. I wasn’t back on campus until classes started again. At which point, Master Thomas had sent out an email saying “Has anyone seen DPort flag? What happened to it?” We were able to meet with Master Thomas [saying] we saved the day. Different classes of DPort alums had come together to save the day.