©Kristopher Radder Brattleboro Reformer
Drew Mohr lives in Putney with his wife Allie and their two young daughters. He is one of the many young people in Vermont who grew up here in southeastern Vermont starting in the nineties. After graduating from The Putney School he hightailed it for greener pastures, as so many others his age did – this writer’s son included - to California (or Colorado or…...) Drew had no end of adventures, developed his carpentry skills (originally based on those of his father Rick), married, and in his mid 30’s, couldn’t wait to get back to SE Vermont. He now lives with his wife Allie, originally from Evanston, IL and their two children – Willow is three years; Lyra, four months. He is a highly experienced builder; Allie is an adjunct math professor at The Community College of Vermont in Brattleboro. They have recently purchased land in the area where Drew will build a barn and house, and this sweet family of four can permanently settle in.
Drew was born at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital on May 25th, 1988, when
(as he pointed out) the lilacs were in bloom. His father, Ric, (who is also a skilled carpenter in SE Vermont) was originally from Flourtown, PA; his mother, Abby Jacobson, was born in Brooklyn but her family had ties to this area: Abby’s grandmother was the partner of Ed Dodd who owned a house in Putney, he of Dodd, Mead Publishing in NYC. Ed Dodd passed away in 1989.
My parents were married at that house. I grew up there. I came along and then my brother Lee arrived two years later. It was a modest farm with 50 to 100 sheep, ducks, chickens, pigs, woodland and fields. In 1994 I started
in 1st grade at the two-room Westminster West Elementary School where Claire Oglesby was the teacher for grades one and two and Mary Hayward (this writer’s wife) was our 3rd and 4th grade teacher. Books and people were everywhere. We’d read quietly in an old bathtub with cushions in it, or if we were too rowdy, Claire would tell us twenty or so kids we had to run ten laps around the school building - to calm us down.”
Mary, who taught 3rd and 4th grades, adds that “The most important study every year was from January until June. Claire and I chose a country to study from January until the end of the school year, interspersed with reading, writing, math…. One year we studied India, another year China or Mexico, Japan, Scandinavia, Africa and slavery….. We brought natives of those countries from The Experiment in International Living in Brattleboro to talk with the kids and maybe cooked with them. We asked poet Veranda Porche from Guilford to write poetry with the students for ten Fridays so all the kids and Claire and I could write poetry about the country we were studying.”
Drew added: "We studied Latin American culture and the jungle and most of the school traveled to Puerto Rico. We also experienced as much cultural diversity as was available to us in Southern VT. I remember learning about life in China and the next year India. That classroom normalized accessibility to other cultures and countries and cultivated a respect for and a curiosity about life across our planet. You could see a lot of us in the film dating from the early 2000’s made by Alan Dater and Lisa Merton: “The World in Claire’s Classroom”.
“I then went to The Putney School where I also met kids from all over the world. I essentially “lived” in the art building - studying print making with teacher Brian Cohen. I had my own studio by my senior year. The facilities at The Putney School rivalled programs at colleges I looked at, influencing my decision to forego attending a university. I graduated in 2006.
“I had a huge case of wanderlust. I deferred enrollment at UVM and instead spent three months in Nepal. I flew home and subsequently left Putney for wider pastures, as had most of my Vermont friends. I ended up in Arcata, CA for eight years and worked in construction. I was also a working musician in a town that housed a world-renowned university music program. Thatallowed me to hone my talents as a bassist and vocalist while I maintained a modest career playing with various bands. It's a terrible way to make money, however, so I sustained myself by working as a carpenter, like my father Ric. I played bass guitar with musicians from all over the world. That career found me moving to Seattle to further challenge myself but when Covid hit, at age thirty-two, I, like MANY of my friends, moved back to Vermont.
“The pull of SE Vermont is very real. A few weeks ago I was grilling chicken at the annual Westminster West Fair. As I did, I saw a lot of the folks who were classmates from the West West School. They too were back and married with toddlers. All our kids are now friends. It’s crazy! I always expected to raise my children in VT, but never expected to be doing so with some of my oldest friends.
“ My creative energies mostly go toward a new design-build firm I’m developing with neighbor and fellow West West schoolhouse classmate Kyra Chapin – a force of nature. My brother Lee and Cynthia Moore are also founding members of this venture. “As the bigger world becomes ever increasingly profit driven, AI reliant, and dystopian, we’re trying to build a construction business that is sustainable, simple. I want to welcome inexperienced folks to learn valuable and necessary skills. Everyone needs to know how to work with their hands – how to build cabinets, a whole house, how to build a shed or lay a lasting stone wall.
“I currently work as Mohr Better Builders with my brother Lee, but we will be rolling out as Kestrel Design & Build in the next few months. Kestrel will be a worker-owned cooperative. We're working closely with the Vermont Employee Ownership Center to create a company that shares profits, provides incentives for young people to join the trades, and addresses our housing crisis. I’m currently booked out for at least 1 ½ years of residential work but would like to focus primarily on new construction in the coming years.”
“And that brings up the most important matter: family. We’ve lived in Putney for six years. His wife Allie pointed out “Drew stays home Tuesdays to look after baby Lyra. Each school day I drive Willow to Hilltop School in Brattleboro and then pick her up. I teach an Applied Math class at SVEC in Brattleboro one day a week and my two statistics classes via the internet on Thursdays from home. I teach those two classes on the day when I drop Lyra off at the home of Miranda Sherman in Guilford – she’s a gem and used to teach at Hilltop. (A profile of her will appear soon in The Reformer.) At home, Lyra is a dream of a baby – she smiles all the time. But it’s all about teamwork.”
Just as this writer was leaving their home after an interview, Willow called out, “Papa” with a question. Drew replied, “Talk to me,” a phrase Allie hears Drew use often with family, friends and clients.