Leonard Emerson Opdycke, 93, died at Vassar Brothers Medical Center on Feb. 3.
Locally, Leo was best known as an educator, particularly for his time as head of the Poughkeepsie Day School (1965-72). He was a transformative director, expanding the curriculum, restructuring the physical layout, and adding a high school. Among other things, he introduced the Central Subject program, under which each of the middle grades devoted a full year to studying the history, literature, art, and music of a single time-period, such as the Greeks, the Elizabethan Age, or the Civil War. After leaving the Day School, Leo taught English at Rhinebeck High School, and then spent many years teaching writing at Marist College.
Nationally and internationally, Leo was best known for his leadership in the field of early aviation. His involvement began in 1961, when he started helping a friend put out a newsletter for people who were building and restoring World War I airplanes. Gradually, Leo turned the newsletter into a full-fledged magazine. World War I Aero. By the 1980s, it was nearly 150 pages long, with subscribers all over the world. In 1987 he added a second magazine, Skyways, to cover the period between the world wars. Working with members, commissioning articles, doing his own research, publishing a “Wants and Disposals” column where readers could buy and sell needed parts and drawings, writing scores of book reviews, and maintaining a file of individual projects and museum holdings around the world, Leo established himself as the man to call with any question, no matter how obscure, about early aviation.
Besides the two magazines, Leo had a dream-project, which was to build his own WWI airplane -a full-scale reproduction of a 1913 Bristol Scout. During the early 1980s, working from the original factory drawings, and hand-crafting all the metal fittings, he gradually built the whole thing in pieces in the basement. His next-door neighbor had a spacious extra garage, and that is where the Scout was finally assembled.
In 1986, Leo took the completed plane to the Rhinebeck Aerodrome for its first flight. Alas, its first flight was also its last. After a short time in the air, the magneto failed, and Leo had to make a crash landing. He was unhurt, but the plane was significantly damaged. Nevertheless, it caught the interest of some British museum people, who bought the plane and had it shipped to England, repaired, and placed on exhibit in the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Museum in Yeovilton, England.
One final aviation project: during the 1990s, Leo visited archives in Paris, London, Berlin, Ottawa, and Washington DC, gathering material for his monumental book, French Aeroplanes Before the Great War. Published in 1999, this was a coffee-table-size volume, packed with photographs and breaking new ground in the amount of information it provided about early French aviation.
Leo was born in 1929 in Boston MA, the son of Leonard Opdycke, a professor of Art at Harvard University, and Frances Prescott Opdycke. As a boy, he attended Shady Hill School in Cambridge MA. Shady Hill’s progressive approach to teaching had a profound influence on Leo’s own ideas about education. He went on to Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter NH, and then to Harvard College, where he majored in English and comparative philology. He graduated, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1951. Then, after a year as an apprentice at Shady Hill, he spent several years teaching fourth grade at the Dedham Country Day School, Dedham MA.
In 1956, Leo moved to the Harley School in Rochester NY, where he taught English, and also served as head of the upper school. It is a mark of his impact there that the Class of 1964 dedicated their yearbook to him. He spent 1964-65 earning a Master’s degree in Psycholinguistics at the University of Rochester. Then in the fall of l965 he began his work at the Poughkeepsie Day School.
One of Leo’s major volunteer interests, starting in the early 1980s, was the Poughkeepsie Family Development Center. He was a devoted board-member for 25 years, serving several times as president or co-president, and playing a leading role in negotiating the agency’s merger with the nearby Community Daycare Center. When the reorganization was complete, in 1995, the new Community Family Development Center was the largest day-care center in Dutchess County, and it remains so today.
Leo had five daughters -- Susan, Deborah, and Meg (with his first wife, Susan Woollcott, and Sarah and Frances Louise (with his second wife, Jeanne Bernhard). In 1976 Leo married Sandra Auchincloss, who brought along her own three daughters – Robin, Brooke, and Megan.
During all these years, the Opdyckes’ beloved Yellow House in Bar Harbor ME functioned as the family’s annual summer gathering place, bringing together varying combinations of daughters, along with a growing number of grandchildren. Leo and Sandra also did considerable traveling — visiting their children here and there; going to Mexico, Peru, and Australia; and making many extended car-trips, both in the United States and Europe.
Leo spent his final years at the Taconic Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Highland NY, where the staff provided him with extraordinarily kind and thoughtful care. He is survived by his wife Sandra, by his daughters — Susan Opdycke, Deborah Bailey, Meg Lamme, Sarah Kardas, and Louisa (Frances) Opdycke — and by nine grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
A memorial service is planned for later this year. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, 9 Norton Road, Red Hook NY, 12571.
Arrangements are under the direction of the Wm. G. Miller & Son FH, Inc. If you wish to send an online condolence, please visit our website at www.wmgmillerfuneralhome.com