An Enduring Kingswood Connection Comes to Life
Seventy-five years after Sasha Von Schoeler ’52 walked Kingswood’s halls, her daughter’s first visit revealed how one alumna’s experience still resonates today.
Some stories remind us just how long the impact of a Cranbrook education lasts. Last week Susan Davis ’83 brought her friend, Ruth Von Scherler Mayer, to Kingswood for the first time. Ruth’s mother, Alexandra-Xenia Von Schoeler ’52, often spoke about how her years here shaped her life and after hearing about Kingswood her whole life from her mother and her friend Susie, Ruth decided she needed to visit campus. During the visit, Ruth saw her mother’s name carved on the panels in the Rose Lobby and read in the 1952 yearbook how classmates had dubbed her mother a “poetic genius” and “our Sarah Bernhardt”—early glimpses of the talent first expressed at Kingswood that would define her career.
Some stories remind us just how long the impact of a Cranbrook education lasts. Last week Susan Davis ’83 brought her friend, Ruth Von Scherler Mayer, to Kingswood for the first time. Ruth’s mother, Alexandra-Xenia Von Schoeler ’52, often spoke about how her years here shaped her life and after hearing about Kingswood her whole life from her mother and her friend Susie, Ruth decided she needed to visit campus. During the visit, Ruth saw her mother’s name carved on the panels in the Rose Lobby and read in the 1952 yearbook how classmates had dubbed her mother a “poetic genius” and “our Sarah Bernhardt”—early glimpses of the talent first expressed at Kingswood that would define her career.
After Kingswood, she took the stage name of Sasha Von Scherler, studying at the Yale School of Drama and going on to a successful career in theater, appearing in over 100 New York productions including Broadway roles in Alfie (1964), Cyrano de Bergerac (1968), and as Olivia in the 1969 Central Park production of Twelfth Night, along with roles on television and in film. Visiting the classrooms and seeing the auditorium where her mother performed nearly 75 years before, Ruth related that she could understand why her mother spoke so highly of her experiences on the campus.
Stories like Sasha’s—and the fact that her daughter felt drawn to visit campus in person and see the school that transformed her mother’s life— are a powerful reminder of the many ways experiences here have impacted students across the generations, and continue to inspire today.
Click here to read Sasha's New York Times obituary
For more news click here to go the Alumni Welcome Page
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Stories like Sasha’s—and the fact that her daughter felt drawn to visit campus in person and see the school that transformed her mother’s life— are a powerful reminder of the many ways experiences here have impacted students across the generations, and continue to inspire today.
Click here to read Sasha's New York Times obituary
For more news click here to go the Alumni Welcome Page
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Susie Davis '83 on campus with her friend Ruth
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Ruth points out her mother's name in the Rose Lobby
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Alexandria-Xenia von Schoeler '52
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Sasha Von Scherler
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Sasha Von Scherler and Fred Gwynne
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